; 
. 

, 

%^' 


AN  ^OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY 


AN  IDYL   OF  SARATOGA 


BY 


W.   D.    IJOWELLS 

AUTHOR   OF   "THE    LANDLORD   AT   LION'S   HEAD 

"  THE  COAST  OF  BOHEMIA"  "  APRIL  HOPES  " 

UA  HAZARD  OF  NEW  FORTUNES"  ETC. 


NEW   YORK    AND   LONDON 
HARPER    &    BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 

1897 


MeFFJTT 


W.  D.  HOWELLS'S  WORKS. 


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MY  YEAR  IN  A   LOG    CABIN.  ! 
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FARCES:  Five  o'clock  Tea.— The 
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NEW    YORK    AND    LONDON: 
HARPER   &   BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS. 


Copyright,  1897,  by  W.  D.  HOWBLL 


Electrotyped  by  J.  A.  Howells  &  Co.,  Jefferson,  Ohio. 


AN  OPEN-EYED  CONSPIKACY: 

A   SARATOGA   IDYL. 


I. 

THE  day  had  been  very  hot  under  the  tall  trees 
which  everywhere  embower  and  stifle  Saratoga,  for 
they  shut  out  the  air  as  well  as  the  sun ;  and  after  tea 
(they  still  have  an  early  dinner  at  all  the  hotels  in  Sar 
atoga,  and  tea  is  the  last  meal  of  the  day)  I  strolled 
over  to  the  pretty  Congress  Park,  in  the  hope  of  get 
ting  a  breath  of  coolness  there.  Mrs.  March  preferred 
to  take  the  chances  on  the  veranda  of  our  pleasant  lit 
tle  hotel,  where  I  left  her  with  the  other  ladies,  forty 
fanning  like  one,  as  they  rocked  to  and  fro  under  the 
roof  lifted  to  the  third  story  by  those  lofty  shafts  pe 
culiar  to  the  Saratoga  architecture.  As  far  as  coolness 
was  concerned  I  thought  she  was  wise  after  I  reached 
the  park,  for  I  found  none  of  it  there.  I  tried  first  a 
chair  in  the  arabesque  pavilion  (I  call  it  arabesque  in 
despair ;  it  might  very  well  be  Swiss ;  it  is  charming,  at 
A 


154762 


2  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY 

all  events),  and  studied  to  deceive  myself  with  the 
fresh-looking  ebullition  of  the  spring  in  the  vast  glass 
bowls  your  goblets  are  served  from  (people  say  it  is 
pumped,  and  artificially  aerated) ;  but  after  a  few  mo 
ments  this  would  not  do,  and  I  went  out  to  a  bench, 
of  the  rows  beside  the  graveled  walks.  It  was  no  bet 
ter  there ;  but  I  fancied  it  would  be  better  on  the  little 
isle  in  the  little  lake,  where  the  fountain  was  flinging 
a  sheaf  of  spray  into  the  dull  air.  This  looked  even 
cooler  than  the  bubbling  spring  in  the  glass  vases,  and 
it  sounded  vastly  cooler.  There  would  be  mosquitos 
there,  of  course,  I  admitted  in  the  debate  I  had  with 
myself  before  I  decided  to  make  experiment  of  the 
place,  and  the  event  proved  me  right.  There  were 
certainly  some  mosquitos  in  the  Grecian  temple  (if  it 
is  not  a  Turkish  kiosk ;  perhaps  we  had  better  com 
promise,  and  call  it  a  Grecian  kiosk),  which  you  reach 
by  a  foot-bridge  from  the  mainland,  and  there  was  a 
damp  in  the  air  which  might  pass  for  coolness.  There 
were  three  or  four  people  standing  vaguely  about  in 
the  kiosk ;  but  my  idle  mind  fixed  itself  upon  a  young 
French-Canadian  mother  of  low  degree,  who  sat,  with 
her  small  boy,  on  the  verge  of  the  pavement  near  the 
water.  She  scolded  him  in  their  parlance  for  having 
got  himself  so  dirty,  and  then  she  smacked  his  poor, 


A    SARATOGA   IDYL. 

filthy  little  hands,  with  a  frown  of  superior  virtue, 
though  I  did  not  find  her  so  very  much  cleaner  herself. 
I  cannot  see  children  beaten  without  a  heart-ache,  and 
I  continued  to  suffer  for  this  small  wretch  even  after 
he  had  avenged  himself  by  eating  a  handful  of  peanut 
shells,  which  would  be  sure  to  disagree  with  him  and 
make  his  mother  more  trouble.  In  fact,  I  experienced 
no  relief  till  his  mother,  having  spent  her  insensate 
passion,  gathered  him  up  with  sufficient  tenderness, 
and  carried  him  away.  Then,  for  the  first  time,  I 
noticed  a  girl  sitting  in  a  chair  just  outside  the  kiosk, 
and  showing  a  graceful  young  figure  as  she  partly 
turned  to  look  after  the  departing  mother  and  her 
child.  When  she  turned  again  and  glanced  in  my 
direction,  at  the  noise  I  made  in  placing  my  chair,  I 
could  see  two  things — that  she  had  as  much  beauty  as 
grace,  and  that  she  was  disappointed  in  me.  The  lat 
ter  fact  did  not  wound  me,  for  I  felt  its  profound  im 
personality.  I  was  not  wrong  in  myself ;  I  was  simply 
wrong  in  being  an  elderly  man  with  a  gray  beard  in 
stead  of  the  handsome  shape  and  phase  of  youth  which 
her  own  young  beauty  had  a  right  to  in  my  place.  I 
was  not  only  not  wounded,  but  I  was  not  sorry  not  to 
be  that  shape  and  phase  of  youth,  except  as  I  hate  to 
disappoint  any  one. 


4  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY 

Her  face  was  very  beautiful ;  it  was  quite  perfectly 
beautiful,  and  of  such  classic  mould  that  she  might  well 
have  been  the  tutelary  goddess  of  that  temple  (if  it 
was  a  temple,  and  not  a  kiosk),  in  the  white  duck  cos 
tume  which  the  goddesses  were  wearing  that  summer. 
Her  features  were  Greek,  but  her  looks  were  American ; 
and  she  was  none  the  less  a  goddess,  I  decided,  because 
of  that  air  of  something  exacting,  of  not  quite  satisfied, 
which  made  me  more  and  more  willing  to  be  elderly 
and  gray-bearded.  I  at  least  should  not  be  expected 
to  supply  the  worship  necessary  to  keep  such  a  god 
dess  in  good  humor. 

I  do  not  know  just  how  I  can  account  for  a  strain 
of  compassion  which  mingled  with  this  sense  of  irre 
sponsibility  in  me ;  perhaps  it  was  my  feeling  of  se 
curity  that  attuned  me  to  pity ;  but  certainly  I  did  not 
look  at  this  young  girl  long  without  beginning  to 
grieve  for  her,  and  to  weave  about  her  a  web  of  possi 
bilities,  which  grew  closer  and  firmer  in  texture  when 
she  was  joined  by  a  couple  who  had  apparently  not 
left  her  a  great  while  before,  and  who  spoke,  without 
otherwise  saluting  her,  as  they  sat  down  on  either  side 
of  her.  I  instantly  interpreted  her  friends  to  be  the 
young  wife  and  middle-aged  husband  of  a  second  mar 
riage  ;  for  they  were  evidently  man  and  wife,  and  he 


A    SARATOGA   IDYL.  5 

must  have  been  nearly  twice  as  old  as  she.  In  person 
he  tended  to  the  weight  which  expresses  settled  pros 
perity,  and  a  certain  solidification  of  temperament  and 
character ;  as  to  his  face,  it  was  kind,  and  it  was  rather 
humorous,  in  spite  of  being  a  little  slow  in  the  cast  of 
mind  it  suggested.  He  wore  an  iron-gray  beard  on 
his  cheeks  and  chin,  but  he  had  his  strong  upper  lip 
clean  shaven ;  some  drops  of  perspiration  stood  upon 
it,  and  upon  his  forehead,  which  showed  itself  well  up 
toward  his  crown  under  the  damp  strings  of  his  scanty 
hair.  He  looked  at  the  young  goddess  in  white  duck 
with  a  sort  of  trouble  in  his  friendly  countenance,  and 
his  wife  (if  it  was  his  wife)  seemed  to  share  his  con 
cern,  though  she  smiled,  while  he  let  the  corners  of 
his  straight  mouth  droop.  She  was  smaller  than  the 
young  girl,  and  I  thought  almost  as  young;  and  she 
had  the  air  of  being  somehow  responsible  for  her,  and 
cowed  by  her,  though  the  word  says  rather  more  than 
I  mean.  She  was  not  so  well  dressed ;  that  is,  not  so 
stylishly,  though  doubtless  her  costume  was  more  ex 
pensive.  It  seemed  the  inspiration  of  a  village  dress 
maker;  and  her  husband's  low-cut  waistcoat,  and  his 
expanse  of  plaited  shirt-front,  betrayed  a  provincial 
ideal  which  she  would  never  decry — which  she  would 
perhaps  never  find  different  from  the  most  worldly. 


AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY: 

lie  had  probably,  I  swiftly  imagined,  been  wearing 
just  that  kind  of  clothes  for  twenty  years,  and  telling 
his  tailor  to  make  each  new  suit  like  the  last ;  he  had 
been  buying  for  the  same  period  the  same  shape  of 
Panama  hat,  regardless  of  the  continually  changing 
type  of  straw  hats  on  other  heads.  I  cannot  say  just 
why,  as  he  tilted  his  chair  back  on  its  hind-legs,  I  felt 
that  he  was  either  the  cashier  of  the  village  bank  at 
home,  or  one  of  the  principal  business  men  of  the  place. 
Village  people  I  was  quite  resolute  to  have  them  all ; 
but  I  left  them  free  to  have  come  from  some  small 
manufacturing  centre  in  western  Massachusetts  or 
southern  Vermont  or  central  New  York.  It  was  easy 
to  see  that  they  were  not  in  the  habit  of  coming  away 
from  their  place,  wherever  it  was;  and  I  wondered 
whether  they  were  finding  their  account  in  the  present 
excursion. 

I  myself  think  Saratoga  one  of  the  most  delightful 
spectacles  in  the  world,  and  Mrs.  March  is  of  the  same 
mind  about  it.  We  like  all  the  waters,  and  drink  them 
without  regard  to  their  different  properties ;  but  we 
rather  prefer  the  Congress  spring,  because  it  is  such  a 
pleasant  place  to  listen  to  the  Troy  military  band  in 
the  afternoon,  and  the  more  or  less  vocal  concert  in 
the  evening.  All  the  Saratoga  world  comes  and  goes 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  7 

before  us,  as  we  sit  there  by  day  and  by  night,  and  we 
find  a  perpetual  interest  in  it.  We  go  and  look  at  the 
deer  (a  herd  of  two,  I  think)  behind  their  wire  netting 
in  the  southward  valley  of  the  park,  and  we  would  feed 
the  trout  in  their  blue  tank  if  we  did  not  see  them 
suffering  with  surfeit,  and  hanging  in  motionless  mis 
ery  amid  the  clear  water  under  a  cloud  of  bread 
crumbs.  We  are  such  devotees  of  the  special  attrac 
tions  offered  from  time  to  time  that  we  do  not  miss  a 
single  balloon  ascension  or  pyrotechnic  display.  In 
fact,  it  happened  to  me  one  summer  that  I  studied  so 
earnestly  and  so  closely  the  countenance  of  the  lady 
who  went  up  (in  trunk-hose),  in  order  to  make  out  just 
what  were  the  emotions  of  a  lady  who  went  up  every 
afternoon  in  a  balloon,  that  when  we  met  near  the  end 
of  the  season  in  Broadway  I  thought  I  must  have  seen 
her  somewhere  in  society,  and  took  off  my  hat  to  her 
(she  was  not  at  the  moment  in  trunk-hose).  We  like 
going  about  to  the  great  hotels,  and  sponging  on  them 
for  the  music  in  the  forenoon ;  we  like  the  gaudy  shops 
of  modes  kept  by  artists  whose  addresses  are  French 
and  whose  surnames  are  Irish  ;  and  the  bazaars  of  the 
Armenians  and  Japanese,  whose  rugs  and  bric-a-brac 
are  not  such  bargains  as  you  would  think.  We  even 
go  to  the  races  sometimes ;  we  are  not  sure  it  is  quite 


AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

right,  but  as  we  do  not  bet,  and  are  never  decided  as 
to  which  horse  has  won,  it  is  perhaps  not  so  wrong  as 
it  might  be. 

Somehow  I  could  not  predicate  these  simple  joys  of 
the  people  I  have  been  talking  of,  for  the  very  reason 
that  they  were  themselves  so  simple.  It  was  our  so 
phistication  which  enabled  us  to  taste  pleasures  which 
would  have  been  insipidities  to  them.  Their  palates 
would  have  demanded  other  flavors — social  excite 
ments,  balls,  flirtations,  almost  escapades.  I  speak  of 
the  two  women ;  the  man,  doubtless,  like  most  other 
Americans  of  his  age,  wanted  nothing  but  to  get  back 
to  business  in  the  small  town  where  he  was  important ; 
and  still  more  I  speak  of  the  young  girl ;  for  the  young 
wife  I  fancied  very  willing  to  go  back  to  her  house 
keeping,  and  to  be  staying  on  in  Saratoga  only  on  her 
friend's  account. 


II. 

I  HAD  already  made  up  my  mind  that  they  had  been 
the  closest  friends  before  one  of  them  married,  and 
that  the  young  wife  still  thought  the  young  girl  worthy 
of  the  most  splendid  fate  that  marriage  could  have  in 
store  for  any  of  her  sex.  Women  often  make  each 
other  the  idols  of  such  worship ;  but  I  could  not  have 
justified  this  lady's  adoration  so  far  as  it  concerned 
the  mental  and  moral  qualities  of  her  friend,  though  I 
fully  shared  it  in  regard  to  her  beauty.  To  me  she 
looked  a  little  dull  and  a  little  selfish,  and  I  chose  to 
think  the  husband  modestly  found  her  selfish,  if  he 
were  too  modest  to  find  her  dull. 

Yet,  after  all,  I  tacitly  argued  with  him,  why  should 
we  call  her  selfish?  It  was  perfectly  right  and  fit 
that,  as  a  young  girl  with  such  great  personal  advan 
tages,  she  should  wish  to  see  the  world, — even  to  show 
herself  to  the  world, — and  find  in  it  some  agreeable 
youth  who  should  admire  her,  and  desire  to  make  her 
his  own  forever.  Compare  this  simple  and  natural 


10  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

longing  with  the  insatiate  greed  and  ambition  of  one 
of  our  own  sex,  I  urged  him,  and  then  talk  to  me,  if 
you  can,  of  this  poor  girl's  selfishness  !  A  young  man 
has  more  egoism  in  an  hour  than  a  young  girl  has  in 
her  whole  life.  She  thinks  she  wishes  some  one  to 
be  devoted  to  her,  but  she  really  wishes  some  one  to 
let  her  be  devoted  to  him;  and  how  passively,  how 
negatively,  she  must  manage  to  accomplish  her  self- 
sacrifice  !  He,  on  the  contrary,  means  to  go  conquer 
ing  and  enslaving  forward ;  to  be  in  and  out  of  love 
right  and  left,  and  to  end,  after  many  years  of  tri 
umph,  in  the  possession  of  the  best  and  wisest  and 
fairest  of  her  sex.  I  know  the  breed,  my  dear  sir ;  I 
have  been  a  young  man  myself.  We  men  have  liberty, 
we  have  initiative ;  we  are  not  chaperoned ;  we  can  go 
to  this  one  and  that  one  freely  and  fearlessly.  But 
women  must  sit  still,  and  be  come  to  or  shied  off  from. 
They  cannot  cast  the  bold  eye  of  interest ;  they  can  at 
most  bridle  under  it,  and  furtively  respond  from  the 
corner  of  the  eye  of  weak  hope  and  gentle  deprecation. 
Be  patient,  then,  with  this  poor  child  if  she  darkles  a 
little  under  the  disappointment  of  not  finding  Saratoga 
so  personally  gay  as  she  supposed  it  would  be,  and 
takes  it  out  of  you  and  your  wife,  as  if  you  were  to 
blame  for  it,  in  something  like  sulks. 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  11 

He  remained  silent  under  these  tacit  appeals,  but  at 
the  end  he  heaved  a  deep  sigh,  as  he  might  if  he  were 
acknowledging  their  justice,  and  were  promising  to  do 
his  very  best  in  the  circumstances.  His  wife  looked 
round  at  him,  but  did  not  speak.  In  fact,  they  none 
of  them  spoke  after  the  first  words  of  greeting  to  the 
girl,  as  I  can  very  well  testify ;  for  I  sat  eavesdropping 
with  all  my  might,  resolved  not  to  lose  a  syllable,  and 
I  am  sure  I  lost  none. 

The  young  girl  did  not  look  round  at  that  deep- 
drawn  sigh  of  the  man's ;  she  did  not  lift  her  head 
even  when  he  cleared  his  throat :  but  I  was  intent 
upon  him,  for  I  thought  that  these  sounds  preluded  an 
overture  (I  am  not  sure  of  the  figure)  to  my  acquaint 
ance,  and  in  fact  he  actually  asked,  "Do  you  know 
just  when  the  concert  begins  ? " 

I  was  overjoyed  at  his  question,  for  I  was  poignantly 
interested  in  the  little  situation  I  had  created,  and  I 
made  haste  to  answer:  "Well,  nominally  at  eight 
o'clock ;  but  the  first  half-hour  is  usually  taken  up  in 
tuning  the  instruments.  If  you  get  into  the  pavilion 
at  a  quarter  to  nine  you  won't  lose  much.  It  isn't  so 
bad  when  it  really  begins." 

The  man  permitted  himself  a  smile  of  the  pleasure 
we  Americans  all  feel  at  having  a  thing  understated 


12  AN   OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

in  that  way.  His  wife  asked  timidly,  "  Do  we  have 
to  engage  our  seats  in  the — pavilion  ? " 

"  Oh,  no,"  I  laughed ;  "  there's  no  such  rush  as  that. 
Haven't  you  been  at  the  concerts  before  ? " 

The  man  answered  for  her :  "  We  haven't  been  here 
but  a  few  days.  I  should  think,"  he  added  to  her, 
"it  would  be  about  as  comfortable  outside  of  the 
house."  I  perceived  that  he  maintained  his  independ 
ence  of  my  superior  knowledge  by  refusing  to  say 
"  pavilion  "  ;  and  in  fact  I  do  not  know  whether  that 
is  the  right  name  for  the  building  myself. 

"  It  will  be  hot  enough  anywhere,"  I  assented,  as  if 
the  remark  had  been  made  to  me ;  but  here  I  drew 
the  line  out  of  self-respect,  and  resolved  that  he  should 
make  the  next  advances. 

The  young  girl  looked  up  at  the  first  sound  of  my 
voice,  and  verified  me  as  the  elderly  man  whom  she 
had  seen  before;  and  then  she  looked  down  at  the 
water  again.  I  understood,  and  I  freely  forgave  her. 
If  my  beard  had  been  brown  instead  of  gray  I  should 
have  been  an  adventure ;  but  to  the  eye  of  girlhood 
adventure  can  never  wear  a  gray  beard.  I  was  truly 
sorry  for  her ;  I  could  read  in  the  pensive  droop  of  her 
averted  face  that  I  was  again  a  disappointment. 

They  all  three  sat,  without  speaking  again,  in  the 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  13 

mannerless  silence  of  Americans.  The  man  was  not 
going  to  feel  bound  in  further  civility  to  me  because 
I  had  civilly  answered  a  question  of  his.  I  divined 
that  he  would  be  glad  to  withdraw  from  the  overture 
he  had  made  ;  he  may  have  thought  from  my  readiness 
to  meet  him  half  way  that  I  might  be  one  of  those 
sharpers  in  whom  Saratoga  probably  abounded.  This 
did  not  offend  me ;  it  amused  me ;  I  fancied  his  con 
fusion  if  he  could  suddenly  know  how  helplessly  and 
irreparably  honest  I  was. 

"  I  don't  know  but  it's  a  little  too  damp  here,  Ru- 
fus,"  said  the  wife. 

"  I  don't  know  but  it  is,"  he  answered ;  but  none 
of  them  moved,  and  none  of  them  spoke  again  for 
some  minutes.  Then  the  wife  said  again,  but  this 
time  to  the  friend,  "  I  don't  know  but  it's  a  little  too 
damp  here,  Julia,"  and  the  friend  answered,  as  the 
husband  had: 

"  I  don't  know  but  it  is," 

I  had  two  surprises  in  this  slight  event.  I  could 
never  have  imagined  that  the  girl  had  so  brunette  a 
name  as  Julia,  or  anything  less  blond  in  sound  than, 
say,  Evadne,  at  the  very  darkest;  and  I  had  made  up 
my  mind — Heaven  knows  why — that  her  voice  would 
be  harsh.  Perhaps  I  thought  it  unfair  that  she  should 


14  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY: 

have  a  sweet  voice  added  to  all  that  beauty  and  grace 
of  hers;  but  she  had  a  sweet  voice,  very  tender  and 
melodious,  with  a  plangent  note  in  it  that  touched  me 
and  charmed  me.  Beautiful  and  graceful  as  she  was, 
she  had  lacked  atmosphere  before,  and  now  suddenly 
she  had  atmosphere.  I  resolved  to  keep  as  near  to 
these  people  as  I  could,  and  not  to  leave  the  place  as 
long  as  they  stayed  ;  but  I  did  not  think  it  well  to  let 
them  feel  that  I  was  aesthetically  shadowing  them,  and 
I  got  up  and  strolled  away  toward  the  pavilion,  keep 
ing  an  eye  in  the  back  of  my  head  upon  them. 

I  sat  down  in  a  commanding  position,  and  watched 
the  people  gathering  for  the  concert ;  and  in  the  drama 
of  a  group  of  Cubans,  or  of  South  Americans,  I  almost 
forgot  for  a  moment  the  pale  idyl  of  my  compatriots 
at  the  kiosk.  There  was  a  short,  stout  little  Spanish 
woman  speaking  in  the  shapely  sentences  which  the 
Latin  race  everywhere  delights  in,  and  around  her  was 
an  increasing  number  of  serious  Spanish  men,  listen 
ing  as  if  to  important  things,  and  paying  her  that 
respectful  attention  which  always  amuses  and  puzzles 
me.  In  view  of  what  we  think  their  low  estimate  of 
women,  I  cannot  make  out  whether  it  is  a  personal 
tribute  to  some  specific  woman  whom  they  regard  dif 
ferently  from  all  the  rest  of  her  sex,  or  whether  they 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL,  15 

choose  to  know  in  her  for  the  nonce  the  abstract  wom 
an  who  is  better  than  woman  in  the  concrete.  I  am 
sure  I  have  never  seen  men  of  any  other  race  abandon 
themselves  to  such  a  luxury  of  respect  as  these  black 
and  gray  bearded  Spaniards  of  leaden  complexion 
showed  this  dumpy  personification  of  womanhood, 
with  their  prominent  eyes  bent  in  homage  upon  her, 
and  their  hands  trembling  with  readiness  to  seize  their 
hats  off  in  reverence.  It  appeared  presently  that  the 
matter  they  were  all  canvassing  so  devoutly  was  the 
question  of  where  she  should  sit.  It  seemed  to  be  de 
cided  that  she  could  not  do  better  than  sit  just  at  that 
point.  When  she  actually  took  a  chair  the  stately  con 
vocation  ended,  and  its  members,  with  low  obeisances, 
dispersed  themselves  in  different  directions.  They  had 
probably  all  been  sitting  with  her  the  whole  afternoon 
on  the  veranda  of  the  Everett  House,  where  their  race 
chiefly  resorts  in  Saratoga,  and  they  were  availing 
themselves  of  this  occasion  to  appear  to  be  meeting 
her,  after  a  long  interval,  in  society. 

I  said  to  myself  that  of  course  they  believed  Sara 
toga  was  still  that  centre  of  American  fashion  which 
it  once  was,  and  that  they  came  and  went  every  sum 
mer,  probably  in  the  belief  that  they  saw  a  great  deal 
of  social  gayety  there.  This  made  me  think,  by  a 


16  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

natural  series  of  transitions,  of  the  persons  of  my 
American  idyl,  and  I  looked  about  the  pavilion  every 
where  for  them  without  discovering,  till  the  last,  that 
they  were  just  behind  me. 

I  found  the  fact  touching.  They  had  not  wished  to 
be  in  any  wise  beholden  to  me,  and  had  even  tried  to 
reject  my  friendly  readiness  to  know  them  better ;  but 
they  had  probably  sought  my  vicinity  in  a  sense  of 
their  loneliness  and  helplessness,  which  they  hoped  I 
would  not  divine,  but  which  I  divined  instantly.  Still, 
I  thought  it  best  not  to  show  any  consciousness  of 
them,  and  we  sat  through  the  first  part  of  the  concert 
without  taking  notice  of  one  another.  Then  the  man 
leaned  forward  and  touched  me  on  the  shoulder. 

"  Will  you  let  me  take  your  programme  a  minute  ? " 

"  Why,  certainly,"  said  I. 

He  took  it,  and  after  a  vague  glance  at  it  he  passed 
it  to  his  wife,  who  gave  it  in  turn  to  the  young  girl. 
She  studied  it  very  briefly,  and  then,  after  a  question 
ing  look,  offered  it  back  to  me. 

"  Won't  you  keep  it  3 "  I  entreated.  "  I've  quite 
done  with  it." 

"  Oh,  thank  you,"  she  answered  in  her  tender  voice, 
and  she  and  the  wife  looked  hard  at  the  man,  whom  they 
seemed  to  unite  in  pushing  forward  by  that  means. 


A    SARATOGA   IDYL.  IT 

He  hemmed,  and  asked,  "  Have  you  been  in  Sara 
toga  much  ? " 

"Why,  yes,"  I  said;  "rather  a  good  deal.  My 
wife  and  I  have  been  here  three  or  four  summers." 

At  the  confession  of  my  married  state,  which  this 
statement  implicated,  the  women  exchanged  a  glance, 
I  fancied,  of  triumph,  as  if  they  had  been  talking 
about  me,  and  I  had  now  confirmed  the  ground  they 
had  taken  concerning  me.  Then  they  joined  in  goad 
ing  the  man  on  again  with  their  eyes. 

"  Which  hotel,"  he  asked,  "  should  you  say  had  the 
most  going  on  ?  " 

The  young  girl  and  the  wife  transferred  their  gaze 
to  me,  with  an  intensified  appeal  in  it.  The  man 
looked  away  with  a  certain  shame — the  shame  of  a 
man  who  feels  that  his  wife  has  made  him  make  an  ass 
of  himself.  I  tried  to  treat  his  question,  by  the  quan 
tity  and  quality  of  my  answer,  as  one  of  the  most  nat 
ural  things  in  the  world  ;  and  1  probably  deceived  them 
all  by  this  effort,  though  I  am  sure  that  I  was  most 
truthful  and  just  concerning  the  claims  of  the  different 
hotels  to  be  the  centre  of  excitement.  I  thought  I 
had  earned  the  right  to  ask  at  the  end,  "  Are  you 
stopping  at  the  Grand  Union  ? " 

"  No,"  he  said ;  and  he  mentioned  one  of  the  smaller 
B 


18  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

hotels,  which  depend  upon  the  great  hocuses  for  the 
entertainment  of  their  guests.  "  Are  you  there  ? "  he 
asked,  meaning  the  Grand  Union. 

"  Oh,  no,"  I  said ;  "  we  couldn't  do  that  sort  of 
thing,  even  if  we  wanted."  And  in  my  turn  I  named 
the  modest  hotel  where  we  were,  and  said  that  I 
thought  it  by  all  odds  the  pleasantest  place  in  Saratoga. 
"  But  I  can't  say,"  I  added,  "  that  there  is  a  great 
deal  going  on  there,  either.  If  you  want  that  sort  of 
thing  you  will  have  to  go  to  some  of  the  great  hotels. 
We  have  our  little  amusements,  but  they're  all  rather 
mild."  I  kept  talking  to  the  man,  but  really  address 
ing  myself  to  the  women.  "  There's  something  nearly 
every  evening:  prestidigitating,  or  elocutioning,  or  a 
little  concert,  or  charades,  or  impromptu  theatricals, 
or  something  of  that  sort.  I  can't  say  there's  dancing, 
though  really,  I  suppose,  if  any  one  wanted  to  dance 
there  would  be  dancing." 

I  was  aware  that  the  women  listened  intelligently, 
even  if  the  man  did  not.  The  wife  drew  a  long  breath, 
and  said,  "  It  must  be  very  pleasant." 

The  girl  said, — rather  more  hungrily,  I  fancied, — 
"  Yes,  indeed." 

I  don't  know  why  their  interest  should  have  prompt 
ed  me  to  go  on  and  paint  the  lily  a  little,  but  I  certainly 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  19 

did  so.  I  did  not  stop  till  the  music  began  again,  and 
I  had  to  stop.  By  the  time  the  piece  was  finished 
I  had  begun  to  have  my  misgivings,  and  I  profited  by 
the  brief  interval  of  silence  to  say  to  the  young  girl, 
"  I  wouldn't  have  you  think  we  are  a  whirl  of  gayety 
exactly." 

"  Oh,  no,"  she  answered  pathetically,  as  if  she  were 
quite  past  expecting  that  or  anything  like  it. 

We  were  silent  again.  At  the  end  of  the  next 
piece  they  all  rose,  and  the  wife  said  timidly  to  me, 
"  Well,  good-evening,"  as  if  she  might  be  venturing 
too  far;  and  her  husband  came  to  her  rescue  with, 
"  Well,  good-evening,  sir."  The  young  girl  merely 
bowed. 

I  did  not  stay  much  longer,  for  I  was  eager  to  get 
home  and  tell  my  wife  about  my  adventure,  which 
seemed  to  me  of  a  very  rare  and  thrilling  kind.  I  be 
lieved  that  if  I  could  present  it  to  her  duly,  it  would 
interest  her  as  much  as  it  had  interested  me.  But 
somehow,  as  I  went  on  with  it  in  the  lamplight  of 
her  room,  it  seemed  to  lose  color  and  specific  char 
acter. 

"  You  are  always  making  up  these  romances  about 
young  girls  being  off  and  disappointed  of  a  good  time 
ever  since  we  saw  that  poor  little  Kitty  Ellison  with 


20  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

her  cousins  at  Niagara,"  said  Mrs.  March.  "You 
seem  to  have  it  on  the  brain." 

"  Because  it's  the  most  tragical  thing  in  the  world, 
and  the  commonest  in  our  transition  state,"  I  retorted. 
I  was  somewhat  exasperated  to  have  my  romance 
treated  as  so  stale  a  situation,  though  I  was  conscious 
now  that  it  did  want  perfect  novelty.  "  It's  precisely 
for  that  reason  that  I  like  to  break  my  heart  over  it. 
I  see  it  every  summer,  and  it  keeps  me  in  a  passion  of 
pity.  Something  ought  to  be  done  about  it." 

"  Well,  don't  you  try  to  do  anything,  Basil,  unless 
you  write  to  the  newspapers." 

"  I  suppose,"  I  said,  "  that  if  the  newspapers  could 
be  got  to  take  hold  of  it,  perhaps  something  might  be 
done."  The  notion  amused  me;  I  went  on  to  play 
with  it,  and  imagined  Saratoga,  by  a  joint  effort  of 
the  leading  journals,  recolonized  with  the  social  life 
that  once  made  it  the  paradise  of  young  people. 

"  I  have  been  writing  to  the  children,"  said  my 
wife,  "  and  telling  them  to  stay  on  at  York  Harbor  if 
the  Herricks  want  them  to  so  much.  They  would  hate 
it  here.  You  say  the  girl  looked  cross.  I  can't  ex 
actly  imagine  a  cross  goddess." 

"  There  were  lots  of  cross  goddesses,"  I  said  rather 
crossly  myself ;  for  I  saw  that,  after  having  trodden 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  21 

my  romance  in  the  dust,  she  was  willing  I  should  pick 
it  up  again  and  shake  it  off,  and  I  wished  to  show  her 
that  I  was  not  to  be  so  lightly  appeased. 

"  Perhaps  I  was  thinking  of  angels,"  she  murmured. 

"  I  distinctly  didn't  say  she  was  an  angel,"  I  re 
turned, 

"  Now,  come,  Basil ;  I  see  you're  keeping  something 
back.  What  did  you  try  to  do  for  those  people  ?  Did 
you  tell  them  where  you  were  stopping  ? " 

"  Yes,  I  did.     They  asked  me,  and  I  told  them." 

"  Did  you  brag  the  place  up  ?  " 

"  On  the  contrary,  I  understated  its  merits." 

"  Oh,  very  well,  then,"  she  said,  quite  as  if  I  had 
confessed  my  guilt ;  "  they  will  come  here,  and  you 
will  have  your  romance  on  your  hands  for  the  rest  of 
the  month.  I'm  thankful  we're  going  away  the  first 
of  August." 


III. 

THE  next  afternoon,  while  we  were  sitting  in  the 
park  waiting  for  the  Troy  band  to  begin  playing,  and 
I  was  wondering  just  when  they  would  reach  the 
"  Washington  Post  March,"  which  I  like  because  I  can 
always  be  sure  of  it,  my  unknown  friends  came  stroll 
ing  our  way.  The  man  looked  bewildered  and  bored, 
with  something  of  desperation  in  his  troubled  eye,  and 
his  wife  looked  tired  and  disheartened.  The  young 
girl,  still  in  white  duck,  wore  the  same  air  of  passive 
injury  I  had  noted  in  her  the  night  before.  Their 
faces  all  three  lighted  up  at  sight  of  me ;  but  they 
faded  again  at  the  cold  and  meagre  response  I  made 
to  their  smiles  under  correction  of  my  wife's  fears  of 
them.  I  own  it  was  base  of  me ;  but  I  had  begun  to 
feel  myself  that  it  might  be  too  large  a  contract  to  at 
tempt  their  consolation,  and,  in  ^act,  after  one  is  fifty 
scarcely  any  romance  will  keep  overnight. 

My  wife  glanced  from  them  to  me,  and  read  my 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  23 

cowardly  mind ;  but  she  waited  till  they  passed,  as 
they  did  after  an  involuntary  faltering  in  front  of  us, 
and  were  keeping  on  down  the  path,  looking  at  the 
benches,  which  were  filled  on  either  hand.  She  said, 
"  Weren't  those  your  friends  ? " 

"  They  were  the  persons  of  my  romance." 

"  No  matter.  Go  after  them  instantly,  and  bring 
them  back  here,  poor  things.  We  can  make  room  for 
them." 

I  rose.  "  Isn't  this  a  little  too  idyllic  ?  Aren't  you 
rather  overdoing  it  ? " 

"  Don't  speak  to  me,  Basil !  I  never  heard  of  any 
thing  so  atrocious.  Go  on  your  knees  to  them  if  they 
refuse !  They  can  sit  here  with  me,  and  you  and  he 
can  stand.  Fly  !  " 

I  knew  she  was  punishing  me  for  her  own  reluc 
tance  ;  but  I  flew,  in  that  sense  of  the  term,  and  easily 
overhauled  them  in  the  tangle  of  people  coming  and 
going  in  the  path,  and  the  nurse-maids  pushing  their 
perambulators  in  either  direction.  Hat  in  hand,  I 
delivered  my  message.  I  could  see  that  it  gave  the 
women  great  pleasure  and  the  man  some  doubt.  His 
mouth  fell  open  a  little ;  their  cheeks  flushed  and  their 
eyes  shone. 

"I  don't  know  as  we  better,"  the  wife  hesitated; 


24  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

"  I'm  afraid  we'll  crowd  you."  And  she  looked  wist 
fully  toward  my  wife.  The  yonng  girl  looked  at  her. 

"  Not  at  all ! "  1  cried.  •'  There's  an  abundance  of 
room.  My  wife's  keeping  the  places  for  you," — in 
fact,  I  saw  her  putting  her  arm  out  along  the  bench, 
and  explaining  to  a  couple  who  had  halted  in  front  of 
her  that  the  seats  were  taken, — "  and  she'll  be  disap 
pointed." 

"  Well,"  the  woman  consented,  with  a  little  sigh  of 
triumph  that  touched  me,  and  reanimated  all  my  in 
terest  in  her  and  in  her  friend.  She  said,  with  a  sort 
of  shy,  instinctive  politeness,  "  I  don't  know  as  you 
and  Mr.  Deering  got  acquainted  last  night." 

"  My  name  is  March,"  I  said,  and  I  shook  the  hand 
of  Mr.  Deering.  It  was  rather  thick. 

"  And  this  is  our  friend,"  Mrs.  Deering  went  on,  in 
presentation  of  me  to  the  young  lady,  "Miss  Gage, 
that's  come  with  us." 

I  was  delighted  that  I  had  guessed  their  relative 
qualities  so  perfectly,  and  when  we  arrived  at  Mrs. 
March  I  glibly  presented  them.  My  wife  was  all  that 
1  could  have  wished  her  to  be  of  sympathetic  and  in 
telligent.  She  did  not  overdo  it  by  shaking  hands,  but 
she  made  places  for  the  ladies,  smiling  cordially ;  and 
Mrs.  Deering  made  Miss  Gage  take  the  seat  between 


A    SARATOGA   IDYL.  25 

them.  Her  husband  and  I  stood  awhile  in  front  of 
them,  and  then  I  said  we  would  go  off  and  find  chairs 
somewhere. 

We  did  not  find  any  till  we  had  climbed  to  the  up 
land  at  the  southeast  of  the  park,  and  then  only  two 
iron  ones,  which  it  was  useless  to  think  of  transport 
ing.  But  there  was  no  reason  why  we  should  not  sit 
in  them  where  they  were :  we  could  keep  the  ladies  in 
plain  sight,  and  I  could  not  mistake  "Washington 
Post"  when  the  band  came  to  it.  Mr.  Deering  sank 
into  one  of  the  chairs  with  a  sigh  of  satisfaction  which 
seemed  to  complete  itself  when  he  discovered  in  the 
thick  grass  at  his  feet  a  twig  from  one  of  the  tall,  slim 
pines  above  us.  He  bent  over  for  it,  and  then,  as  he 
took  out  his  penknife  and  clicked  open  a  blade  to  be 
gin  whittling,  he  cast  up  a  critical  glance  at  the  trees. 

u  Pretty  nice  pines,"  he  said ;  and  he  put  his  hand 
on  the  one  next  to  us  with  a  sort  of  appreciation  that 
interested  me. 

"  Yes ;  the  trees  of  Saratoga  are  the  glory  of  the 
place,"  I  returned.  "I  never  saw  them  grow  any 
where  elso  so  tall  and  slim.  It  doesn't  seem  the  effect 
of  crowding  either.  It's  as  if  there  was  some  chemical 
force  in  the  soil  that  shot  them  up.  They're  like  rock 
ets  that  haven't  left  the  ground  yet." 


26  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

"  It's  the  crowding,"  he  said  seriously,  as  if  the 
subject  were  not  to  be  trifled  with.  "  It's  the  habit 
of  all  these  trees — pines  and  oaks  and  maples,  I  don't 
care  what  they  are — to  spread,  and  that's  what  we  tell 
our  customers.  Give  the  trees  plenty  of  room ;  don't 
plant  'em  too  thick  if  you  want  to  get  all  the  good 
out  of  'em."  As  if  he  saw  a  question  in  my  eye,  he 
went  on :  "  We  do  a  forest-tree  business  exclusively ; 
these  shade-trees,  and  walnuts,  hickories,  chestnuts, 
and  all  kinds.  It's  a  big  trade,  getting  to  be,  and 
growing  all  the  time.  Folks  have  begun  to  find  out 
what  fools  they  were  to  destroy  the  forests,  and  the 
children  want  to  buy  back  what  the  fathers  threw, 
away." 

I  scarcely  needed  to  prompt  him ;  he  was  only  too 
glad  to  talk  on  about  his  business,  and  he  spoke  with 
a  sort  of  homesick  fondness.  He  told  me  that  he  had 
his  nurseries  at  De  Witt  Point,  up  on  the  St.  Law 
rence,  where  he  could  raise  stock  hardy  enough  for  any 
climate,  and  ship  by  land  or  water. 

"  I've  got  to  be  getting  home  right  away  now,"  he 
said  finally,  clicking  his  knife-blade  half  shut  and  open 
with  his  thumb.  "  It's  about  time  for  our  evergreen 
trade,  and  I  don't  want  the  trees  to  stay  a  minute  in 
the  ground  after  the  middle  of  the  month." 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  27 

"  Won't  the  ladies  find  it  hard  to  tear  themselves 
away  from  the  gayeties  of  Saratoga  3 "  I  asked  with 
apparent  vagueness. 

"  Well,  that's  it,"  said  Mr.  Deering ;  and  he  shut 
his  knife  and  slipped  it  into  his  pocket,  in  order  to 
take  his  knee  between  his  clasped  hands  and  lift  his 
leg  from  the  ground.  I  have  noticed  that  this  is  a 
philosophical  attitude  with  some  people,  and  I  was 
prepared  by  it  for  some  thoughtful  generalizing  from 
my  companion.  "  Women  would  be  willing  to  stay 
on  in  a  place  for  a  year  to  see  if  something  wouldn't 
happen;  and  if  you  take  'em  away  before  anything 
happens,  they'll  always  think  that  if  they'd  stayed 
something  would  have  happened  the  next  day,  or  may 
be  the  day  they  left." 

He  stared  upward  into  the  pine  boughs,  and  I  said : 
"  Yes,  that's  so.  I  suppose  we  should  be  like  them  if 
we  had  the  same  conditions.  Their  whole  life  is  an 
expectation  of  something  to  happen.  Men  have  the 
privilege  of  making  things  happen — or  trying  to." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know  as  I  want  to  criticise  'em.  As 
you  say,  I  guess  we  should  be  just  so."  He  dropped 
his  leg,  and  bent  over  as  if  to  examine  the  grass ;  he 
ended  by  taking  a  blade  of  it  between  his  teeth  before 
he  spoke  again,  with  his  head  still  down.  "  I  don't 


28  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

want  to  hurry  'em ;  I  want  to  give  'em  a  fair  show  now 
we're  here,  and  I'll  let  the  stock  go  as  long  as  I  can. 
But  I  don't  see  very  much  gayety  around." 

I  laughed.  "  Why,  it's  all  gayety,  in  one  way. 
Saratoga  is  a  perpetual  Fourth  of  July,  we  think." 

"  Oh,  yes ;  there's  enough  going  on,  and  my  wife 
and  me  we  could  enjoy  it  first  rate." 

"If  the  young  lady  could?"  I  ventured,  with  a 
smile  of  sympathetic  intelligence. 

"  Well,  yes.  You  see,  we  don't  know  anybody,  and 
I  suppose  we  didn't  take  that  into  account.  Well,  I 
suppose  it's  like  this :  they  thought  it  would  be  easy 
to  get  acquainted  in  the  hotel,  and  commence  having 
a  good  time  right  away.  I  don't  know ;  my  wife  had 
the  idea  when  they  cooked  it  up  amongst  'em  that  she 
was  to  come  with  us.  But  I  swear  I  don't  know  how 
to  go  about  it.  I  can't  seem  to  make  up  my  mouth 
to  speak  to  folks  first ;  and  then  you  can't  tell  whether 
a  man  ain't  a  gambler,  or  on  for  the  horse-races  any 
way.  So  we've  been  here  a  week  now,  and  you're  the 
first  ones  we've  spoken  to  besides  the  waiters  since  we 
came." 

I  couldn't  help  laughing,  their  experience  was  so 
exactly  as  I  had  imagined  it  when  I  first  saw  this  dis 
consolate  party.  In  my  triumph  at  my  own  penetra- 


A    SARAPOGA    IDYL.  29 

tion,  I  would  not  have  had  their  suffering  in  the  past 
one  pang  the  less;  but  the  simple  frankness  of  his 
confession  fixed  me  in  the  wish  that  the  future  might 
be  brighter  for  them.  I  thought  myself  warranted  by 
my  wife's  imprudence  in  taking  a  step  toward  their 
further  intimacy  on  my  own  account,  and  I  said: 
"  Well,  perhaps  I  ought  to  tell  you  that  I  haven't  been 
inside  the  Saratoga  Club  or  bet  on  the  races  since  I've 
been  here.  That's  my  name  in  full,"— and  I  gave  him 
my  card, — "  and  I'm  in  the  literary  line ;  that  is,  I'm 
the  editor  of  a  magazine  in  New  York — the  '  Every 
Other  Week.' " 

"  Oh,  yes ;  I  know  who  you  are,"  said  my  compan 
ion,  with  my  card  in  his  hand.  "  Fact  is,  I  was  round 
at  your  place  this  morning  trying  to  get  rooms,  and 
the  clerk  told  me  all  about  you  from  my  description. 
I  felt  as  mean  as  pu'sley  goin' ;  seemed  to  be  takin' 
kind  of  an  advantage  of  you." 

"Not  at  all;  it's  a  public  house,"  I  interrupted; 
but  I  thought  I  should  be  stronger  with  Mrs.  March  if 
I  did  not  give  the  fact  away  to  her,  and  I  resolved  to 
keep  it. 

"  But  they  couldn't  rest  easy  till  I  tried,  and  I  was 
more  than  half  glad  there  wasn't  any  rooms." 

u  Oh,  I'm  very  sorry,"  I  said ;  and  I  indulged  a  real 


30  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

regret  from  the  vantage  I  had.  "  It  would  have  been 
very  pleasant  to  have  you  there.  Perhaps  later — we 
shall  be  giving  up  our  rooms  at  the  end  of  the  month." 

"  No,"  he  said,  with  a  long  breath.  "  If  I've  got 
to  leave  'em,  I  guess  it'll  be  just  as  well  to  leave  'em 
where  they're  acquainted  with  the  house,  anyway." 
His  remark  betrayed  a  point  in  his  thinking  which 
had  not  perhaps  been  reached  in  his  talk  with  the 
ladies.  "  It's  a  quiet  place,  and  they're  used  to  it ; 
and  I  guess  they  wouldn't  want  to  stay  through  the 
rest  of  the  month,  quite.  I  don't  believe  my  wife 
would,  anyway." 

He  did  not  say  this  very  confidently,  but  hopefully 
rather,  and  I  thought  it  afforded  me  an  opening  to  find 
out  something  yet  more  definite  about  the  ladies. 

"  Miss  Gage  is  remarkably  fine-looking,"  I  began. 

"  Think  so  ? "  he  answered.  "  Well,  so  does  my 
wife.  I  don't  know  as  I  like  her  style  exactly,"  he 
said,  with  a  kind  of  latent  grudge. 

"  Her  style  is  magnificent,"  I  insisted. 

"  Well,  maybe  so.  I  guess  she's  good  enough  look 
ing,  if  that's  what  you  mean.  But  I  think  it's  always 
a  kind  of  a  mistake  for  three  persons  to  come  off  to 
gether,  I  don't  care  who  they  are.  Then  there's  three 
opinions.  She's  a  nice  girl,  and  a  good  girl,  and  she 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  31 

don't  put  herself  forward.  But  when  you've  got  a 
young  lady  on  your  hands,  you've  got  her,  and  you 
feel  bound  to  keep  doin'  something  for  her  all  the 
time ;  and  if  you  don't  know  what  to  do  yourself,  and 
your  wife  can't  tell — " 

I  added  intelligently,  "Yes." 

"  Well,  that's  just  where  it  is.  Sometimes  I  wish 
the  whole  dumn  town  would  burn  up."  I  laughed 
and  laughed ;  and  my  friend,  having  begun  to  unpack 
his  heart,  went  on  to  ease  it  of  the  rest  of  its  load.  I 
had  not  waited  for  this  before  making  some  reflections 
concerning  him,  but  I  now  formulated  them  to  myself. 
He  really  had  none  of  that  reserve  I  had  attributed  to 
him  the  night  before  ;  it  was  merely  caution  ;  and  this 
is  the  case  with  most  country  people.  They  are  cau 
tious,  but  not  reserved ;  if  they  think  they  can  trust 
you,  they  keep  back  none  of  their  affairs  ;  and  this  is 
the  American  character,  for  we  are  nearly  all  country 
people.  I  understood  him  perfectly  when  he  said,  "  I 
ruther  break  stone  than  go  through  what  I  have  been 
through  the  last  week !  You  understand  how  it  is. 
'Tain't  as  if  she  said  anything ;  I  wish  she  would  ;  but 
you  feel  all  the  while  that  it  ain't  what  she  expected 
it  to  be,  and  you  feel  as  if  it  was  you  that  was  to 
blame  for  the  failure.  By  George !  if  any  man  was  to 


32  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

come  along  and  make  an  offer  for  my  contract  I  would 
sell  out  cheap.  It's  worse  because  my  wife  asked  her 
to  come,  and  thought  she  was  doin'  her  all  kinds  of  a 
favor  to  let  her.  They've  always  been  great  friends 
since  they  were  little  girls  together,  and  when  we 
talked  of  coming  to  Saratoga  this  summer,  nothing 
would  do  my  wife  but  Julia  must  come  with  us.  Her 
and  her  father  usually  take  a  trip  off  somewhere  in  the 
hot  weather,  but  this  time  he  couldn't  leave ;  president 
of  our  National  Bank,  and  president  of  the  village,  too." 
He  threw  in  the  fact  of  these  dignities  explanatorily, 
but  with  a  willingness,  I  could  see,  that  it  should  affect 
me.  He  went  on  :  "  They're  kind  of  connections  of  my 
first  wife's.  Well,  she's  a  nice  girl ;  too  nice,  I  guess, 
to  get  along  very  fast.  I  see  girls  all  the  way  along 
down  gettin'  acquainted  on  the  cars  and  boats, — we 
come  east  on  the  Ogdensburg  road  to  Rouse's  Point, 
and  then  took  the  boat  down  Lake  Champlain  and 
Lake  George, — but  she  always  seemed  to  hold  back. 
I  don't  know's  she's  proud  either ;  I  can't  make  it  out. 
It  balls  my  wife  all  up,  too.  I  tell  her  she's  fretted 
off  all  the  good  her  trip's  goin'  to  do  her  before  she 
got  it." 

He  laughed  ruefully,  and  just  then  the  band  began 
to  play  the  "  Washington  Post." 


A    SARATOGA   IDYL.  33 

"  What  tune's  that  ?  "  he  demanded. 

"  '  Washington  Post,'  "  I  said,  proud  of  knowing  it. 

"  By  George  !  that  tune  goes  right  to  a  fellow's  legs, 
don't  it  ? " 

"  It's  the  new  march,"  I  said. 

He  listened  with  a  simple  joy  in  it,  and  his  pleasure 
strengthened  the  mystic  bond  which  had  formed  itself 
between  us  through  the  confidences  he  had  made  me, 
so  flatteringly  corroborative  of  all  my  guesses  concern 
ing  him  and  his  party. 


IV. 

I  LONGED  to  have  the  chance  of  bragging  to  my 
wife ;  but  this  chance  did  not  come  till  the  concert  was 
quite  over,  after  I  rejoined  her  with  my  companion, 
and  she  could  take  leave  of  them  all  without  seeming 
to  abandon  them.  Then  I  judged  it  best  to  let  her 
have  the  word ;  for  I  knew  by  the  way  she  ran  her 
hand  through  my  arm,  and  began  pushing  me  along 
out  of  earshot,  that  she  was  full  of  it. 

"  Well,  Basil,  I  think  that  is  the  sweetest  and  sim 
plest  and  kindest  creature  in  the  world,  and  I'm  per 
fectly  in  love  with  her." 

I  did  not  believe  somehow  that  she  meant  the  girl, 
but  I  thought  it  best  merely  to  suggest,  "  There  are 
two." 

"  You  know  very  well  which  I  mean,  and  I  would 
do  anything  I  could  for  her.  She's  got  a  difficult 
problem  before  her,  and  I  pity  her.  The  girl's  very 
well,  and  she  is  a  beauty ;  and  I  suppose  she  has  been 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  35 

having  a  dull  time,  and  of  course  you  couldn't  please 
Mrs.  Deering  half  so  well  as  by  doing  something  for 
her  friend.  I  suppose  you're  feeling  very  proud  that 
they're  just  what  you  divined." 

"  Not  at  all ;  I'm  so  used  to  divining  people.  How 
did  you  know  I  knew  it  ? " 

"  I  saw  you  talking  to  him,  and  I  knew  you  were 
pumping  him." 

"  Pumping  ?  He  asked  nothing  better  than  to  flow. 
He  would  put  to  shame  the  provoked  spontaneity  of 
any  spring  in  Saratoga." 

"  Well,  did  he  say  that  he  was  going  to  leave  them 
here  ? " 

"  He  would  like  to  do  it — yes.  He  was  very  sweet 
and  simple  and  kind,  too,  Isabel.  He  complained  bit 
terly  of  the  goddess,  and  all  but  said  she  sulked." 

"  Why,  I  don't  know,"  said  my  wife.  "  I  think, 
considering,  that  she  is  rather  amiable.  She  bright 
ened  up  more  and  more." 

"  That  was  prosperity,  or  the  hope  of  it,  my  dear. 
Nothing  illumines  us  like  the  prospect  of  pleasant 
things.  She  took  you  for  society  smiling  upon  her,  and 
of  course  she  smiled  back.  But  it's  only  the  first 
smile  of  prosperity  that  cheers.  If  it  keeps  on  smil 
ing  it  ends  by  making  us  dissatisfied  again.  When 


36  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

people  are  getting  into  society  they  are  very  glad ; 
when  tLey  have  got  in  they  seem  to  be  rather  gloomy. 
We  mustn't  let  these  things  go  too  far.  Now  that 
you've  got  your  friends  in  good  humor,  the  right  way 
is  to  drop  them — to  cut  them  dead  when  you  meet 
them,  to  look  the  other  way.  That  will  send  them 
home  perfectly  radiant." 

"  Nonsense  !  I  am  going  to  do  all  I  can  for  them. 
What  do  you  think  we  can  do?  They  haven't  the 
first  idea  how  to  amuse  themselves  here.  It's  a  mira 
cle  they  ever  got  that  dress  the  girl  is  wearing.  They 
just  made  a  bold  dash  because  they  saw  it  in  a  dress 
maker's  window  the  first  day,  and  she  had  to  have 
something.  It's  killingly  becoming  to  her ;  but  I 
don't  believe  they  know  it,  and  they  don't  begin  to 
know  how  cheap  it  was :  it  was  simply  thrown  away. 
I'm  going  shopping  with  them  in  the  morning." 

"Oh!" 

"  But  now  the  question  is,  what  we  can  do  to  give 
them  some  little  glimpse  of  social  gayety.  That's 
what  they've  come  for." 

We  were  passing  the  corner  of  a  large  inclosure 
which  seems  devoted  in  Saratoga  to  the  most  distract 
ing  of  its  pleasures,  and  I  said :  "  Well,  we  might  give 
them  a  turn  on  the  circular  railway  or  the  switchback  ; 


•     ,DYL.  37 

or  we  could  take  them  to  the  Punch  and  Judy  drama, 
or  get  their  fortunes  told  in  the  seeress's  tent,  or  let 
them  fire  in  the  shooting-gallery,  or  buy  some  sweet- 
grass  baskets  of  the  Indians ;  and  there  is  the  pop-corn 
and  the  lemonade." 

"  I  will  tell  you  what,"  said  Mrs.  March,  who  had 
not  been  listening  to  a  word  I  said ;  for  if  she  had 
heard  me  she  would  not  have  had  patience  with  my 
ironical  suggestions. 

"Well,  what?" 

"  Or,  no ;  that  wouldn't  do,  either." 

"  I'm  glad  you  don't  approve  of  the  notion,  on  sec 
ond  thoughts.  I  didn't  like  it  from  the  beginning, 
and  I  didn't  even  know  what  it  was." 

"  We  could  have  them  up  to  the  house  this  evening, 
and  introduce  them  to  some  of  our  friends, — only  there 
isn't  a  young  man  in  the  whole  place, — and  have  them 
stay  to  the  charades." 

"  What  do  you  think,"  I  said,  "  of  their  having 
come  up  this  morning  and  tried  to  get  rooms  at  our 
house  ? " 

"  Yes ;  they  told  me." 

"  And  don't  you  call  that  rather  forthputting  ?  It 
seems  to  me  that  it  was  taking  a  mean  advantage  of 
my  brags." 


38  AN   OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

"  It  was  perfectly  innocent  in  them.  But  now, 
dearest,  don't  be  tiresome.  I  know  that  you  like  them 
as  well  as  I  do,  and  I  will  take  all  your  little  teasing 
affectations  for  granted.  The  question  is,  what  can 
we  do  for  them  ? ' 

"  And  the  answer  is,  I  don't  in  the  least  know. 
There  isn't  any  society  life  at  Saratoga  that  I  can  see ; 
and  if  there  is,  we  are  not  in  it.  How  could  we  get 
any  one  else  in  ?  I  see  that's  what  you're  aiming  at. 
Those  public  socialities  at  the  big  hotels  they  could 
get  into  as  well  as  we  could ;  but  they  wouldn't  be 
anywhere  when  they  got  there,  and  they  wouldn't  know 
what  to  do.  You  know  what  hollow  mockeries  those 
things  are.  Don't  you  remember  that  hop  wre  went  to 
with  the  young  Braceys  the  first  summer  ?  If  those 
girls  hadn't  waltzed  with  each  other  they  wouldn't  have 
danced  a  step  the  whole  evening." 

"  I  know,  I  know,"  sighed  my  wife ;  "  it  was  terri 
ble.  But  these  people  are  so  very  unworldly  that 
don't  you  think  they  could  be  deluded  into  the  belief 
that  they  were  seeing  society  if  we  took  a  little  trouble  ? 
You  used  to  be  so  inventive !  You  could  think  up 
something  now  if  you  tried." 

"  My  dear,  a  girl  knows  beyond  all  the  arts  of  hood 
winking  whether  she's  having  a  good  time,  and  your 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  39 

little  scheme  of  passing  off  one  of  those  hotel  hops  for 
a  festivity  would  never  work  in  the  world." 

"  Well,  I  think  it  is  too  bad  !  What  has  become 
of  all  the  easy  gayety  there  used  to  be  in  the  world  ?  " 

"  It  has  been  starched  and  ironed  out  of  it,  appar 
ently.  Saratoga  is  still  trying  to  do  the  good  old 
American  act,  with  its  big  hotels  and  its  heterogene 
ous  hops,  and  I  don't  suppose  there's  ever  such  a  thing 
as  a  society  person  at  any  of  them.  That  wouldn't 
be  so  bad.  But  the  unsociety  people  seem  to  be  afraid 
of  one  another.  They  feel  that  there  is  something  in 
the  air — something  they  don't  and  can't  understand  ; 
something  alien,  that  judges  their  old-fashioned  Amer 
ican  impulse  to  be  sociable,  and  contemns  it.  No  ;  we 
can't  do  anything  for  our  hapless  friends — I  can  hardly 
call  them  our  acquaintances.  We  must  avoid  them, 
and  keep  them  merely  as  a  pensive  color  in  our  own 
vivid  memories  of  Saratoga.  If  we  made  them  have 
a  good  time,  and  sent  them  on  their  way  rejoicing,  I 
confess  that  I  should  feel  myself  distinctly  a  loser. 
As  it  is,  they're  a  strain  of  melancholy  poetry  in  my 
life,  of  music  in  the  minor  key.  I  shall  always  asso 
ciate  their  pathos  with  this  hot  summer  weather,  and 
I  shall  think  of  them  whenever  the  thermometer  reg 
isters  eighty-nine.  Don't  you  see  the  advantage  of 


40  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

that  ?  I  believe  I  can  ultimately  get  some  literature 
out  of  them.  If  I  can  think  of  a  fitting  fable  for  them 
Fulkerson  will  feature  it  in  '  Every  Other  Week.' 
He'll  get  out  a  Saratoga  number,  and  come  up  here 
and  strike  the  hotels  and  springs  for  ad's." 

"  Well,"  said  Mrs.  March,  "  I  wish  I  had  never  seen 
them ;  and  it's  all  your  fault,  Basil.  Of  course,  when 
you  played  upon  my  sympathies  so  about  them,  I 
couldn't  help  feeling  interested  in  them.  We  are  a 
couple  of  romantic  old  geese,  my  dear." 

"  Not  at  all,  or  at  least  I'm  not.  I  simply  used 
these  people  conjecturally  to  give  myself  an  agreeable 
pang.  I  didn't  want  to  know  anything  more  about 
them  than  I  imagined,  and  I  certainly  didn't  dream  of 
doing  anything  for  them.  You'll  spoil  everything  if 
you  turn  them  from  fiction  into  fact,  and  try  to  manip 
ulate  their  destiny.  Let  them  alone ;  they  will  work 
it  out  for  themselves." 

"  You  know  I  can't  let  them  alone  now,"  she  la 
mented.  "  I  am  not  one  of  those  who  can  give  them 
selves  an  agreeable  pang  with  the  unhappiness  of  their 
fellow-creatures.  I'm  not  satisfied  to  study  them;  I 
want  to  relieve  them." 

She  went  on  to  praise  herself  to  my  disadvantage,  as 
I  notice  wives  will  with  their  husbands,  and  I  did  not 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  41 

attempt  to  deny  her  this  source  of  consolation.  But 
when  she  ended  by  saying,  "  I  believe  I  shall  send  you 
alone,"  and  explained  that  she  had  promised  Mrs. 
Deering  we  would  come  to  their  hotel  for  them  after 
tea,  and  go  with  them  to  hear  the  music  at  the  United 
States  and  the  Grand  Union,  I  protested.  I  said  that 
I  always  felt  too  sneaking  when  I  was  prowling  round 
those  hotels  listening  to  their  proprietary  concerts,  and 
I  was  aware  of  looking  so  sneaking  that  I  expected 
every  moment  to  be  ordered  off  their  piazzas.  As  for 
convoying  a  party  of  three  strangers  about  alone,  I 
should  certainly  not  do  it. 

"  Not  if  I've  a  headache  ? " 

"  Not  if  you've  a  headache." 

"  Oh,  very  well,  then." 

"  What  are  you  two  quarreling  about? "  cried  a  gay 
voice  behind  us,  and  we  looked  round  into  the  laugh 
ing  eyes  of  Miss  Dale.  She  was  the  one  cottager  we 
knew  in  Saratoga,  but  when  we  were  with  her  we  felt 
that  we  knew  everybody,  so  hospitable  was  the  sense 
of  world  which  her  kindness  exhaled. 

"  It  was  Mrs.  March  who  was  quarreling,"  I  said. 
"  I  was  only  trying  to  convince  her  that  she  was 
wrong,  and  of  course  one  has  to  lift  one's  voice.  I 
hope  I  hadn't  the  effect  of  holloing." 


42  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

"  Well,  I  merely  heard  you  above  the  steam  har- 
monicon  at  the  switchback,"  said  Miss  Dale.  "  I  don't 
know  whether  you  call  that  holloing." 

"  Oh,  Miss  Dale,"  said  my  wife,  "  we  are  in  such  a 
fatal—" 

"  Pickle,"  I  suggested,  and  she  instantly  adopted 
the  word  in  her  extremity. 

" — pickle  with  some  people  that  Providence  has 
thrown  in  our  way,  and  that  we  want  to  do  something 
for ;  "  and  in  a  labyrinth  of  parentheses  that  no  man 
could  have  found  his  way  into  or  out  of,  she  possessed 
Miss  Dale  of  the  whole  romantic  fact.  "  It  was  Mr. 
March,  of  course,  who  first  discovered  them,"  she  con 
cluded,  in  plaintive  accusation. 

"  Poor  Mr.  March  !  "  cried  Miss  Dale.  "  Well,  it  is 
a  pathetic  case,  but  it  isn't  the  only  one,  if  that's  any 
comfort.  Saratoga  is  reeking  with  just  such  forlorn- 
ities  the  whole  summer  long ;  but  I  can  quite  under 
stand  how  you  feel  about  it,  Mrs.  March."  We  came 
to  a  corner,  and  she  said  abruptly :  "  Excuse  my  inter 
rupting  your  quarrel !  Not  quite  so  loud,  Mr.  March  !  " 
and  she  flashed  back  a  mocking  look  at  me  as  she 
skurried  off  down  the  street  with  astonishing  rapid 
ity. 

"  How  perfectly  heartless !  "  cried  my  wife.      "  I 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  43 

certainly  thought  she  would  suggest  something — offer 
to  do  something." 

"  I  relied  upon  her,  too,"  I  said  ;  "  but  now  I  have 
my  doubts  whether  she  was  really  going  down  that 
street  till  she  saw  that  it  was  the  best  way  to  escape. 
We're  certainly  in  trouble,  my  dear,  if  people  avoid  us 
in  this  manner." 


V. 

"  I  AM  doing  it  entirely  on  Mrs.  Deering's  account," 
said  my  wife  that  evening  after  tea,  as  we  walked 
down  the  side-street  that  descended  from  our  place 
to  Broadway.  "  She  has  that  girl  on  her  hands,  and 
I  know  she  must  be  at  her  wits'  end." 

"  And  I  do  it  entirely  on  Deering's  account,"  I  re 
torted.  "  He  has  both  of  those  women  on  his  hands." 

We  emerged  into  the  glistening  thoroughfare  in 
front  of  the  vast  hotels,  and  I  was  struck,  as  I  never 
fail  to  be,  with  its  futile  and  unmeaning  splendor.  I 
think  there  is  nothing  in  our  dun-colored  civilization 
prettier  than  that  habit  the  ladies  have  in  Saratoga  of 
going  out  on  the  street  after  dark  in  their  bare  heads. 
When  I  first  saw  them  wandering  about  so  in  the  glit 
ter  of  the  shop-windows  and  the  fitful  glare  of  the 
electrics  everywhere,  I  thought  they  must  be  some  of 
those  Spanish-Americans  mistaking  the  warm,  dry  air 
of  the  Northern  night  for  that  of  their  own  latitudes ; 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  45 

but  when  I  came  up  with  them  I  could  hear,  if  I  could 
not  see,  that  they  were  of  our  own  race.  Those  flat 
and  shapeless  tones  could  come  through  the  noses  of 
no  other.  The  beauty  and  the  elegance  were  also  ours, 
and  the  fearless  trust  of  circumstance.  They  sauntered 
up  and  down  before  the  gaunt,  high  porticos  of  the 
hotels,  as  much  at  home  as  they  could  have  been  in 
their  own  houses,  and  in  much  the  same  dress  as  if 
they  had  been  receiving  there.  The  effect  is  one  of 
incomparable  cheer,  and  is  a  promise  of  social  brilliancy 
which  Saratoga  no  more  keeps  than  she  does  that  of 
her  other  characteristic  aspects :  say  the  forenoon  effect 
of  the  same  thoroughfare,  with  the  piazzas  banked 
with  the  hotel  guests,  and  the  street  full  of  the  light 
equipages  which  seem  peculiar  to  the  place  passing 
and  repassing,  in  the  joyous  sunlight  and  out  of  it,  on 
the  leaf-flecked  street.  Even  the  public  carriages  of 
Saratoga  have  a  fresh,  unjaded  air ;  and  to  issue  from 
the  railway  station  in  the  midst  of  those  buoyant  top- 
phaetons  and  surreys,  with  their  light-limbed  horses, 
is  to  be  thrilled  by  some  such  insensate  expectation  of 
pleasure  as  fills  the  heart  of  a  boy  at  his  first  sally 
into  the  world.  I  always  expect  to  find  my  lost  youth 
waiting  for  me  around  the  corner  of  the  United  States 
Hotel,  and  I  accuse  myself  of  some  fault  if  it  disap- 


46  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

points  me,  as  it  always  does.  I  can  imagine  what 
gaudy  hopes  by  day  and  by  night  the  bright  staging 
of  the  potential  drama  must  awaken  in  the  breast  of  a 
young  girl  when  she  first  sees  it,  and  how  blank  she 
must  feel  when  the  curtain  goes  down  and  there  has 
been  no  play.  It  was  a  real  anguish  to  me  when  that 
young  girl  with  the  Deerings  welcomed  my  wife  and 
me  with  a  hopeful  smile,  as  if  we  were  the  dramatis 
personce,  and  now  the  performance  must  be  going  to 
begin.  I  could  see  how  much  our  chance  acquaintance 
had  brightened  the  perspective  for  her,  and  how  eager 
ly  she  had  repaired  all  her  illusions;  and  I  thought 
how  much  better  it  would  have  been  if  she  had  been 
left  to  the  dull  and  spiritless  resignation  in  which  I 
had  first  seen  her.  From  that  there  could  be  no  fall, 
at  least,  and  now  she  had  risen  from  it  only  to  sink 
again. 

But,  in  fact,  the  whole  party  seemed  falsely  cheered 
by  the  event  of  the  afternoon ;  and  in  the  few  moments 
that  we  sat  with  them  on  their  veranda,  before  going 
to  the  music  at  the  Grand  Union,  I  could  hear  the 
ladies  laughing  together,  while  Deering  joyously  un 
folded  to  me  his  plan  of  going  home  the  next  morning, 
and  leaving  his  wife  and  Miss  Gage  behind  him.  "  They 
will  stay  in  this  hotel, — they  might  as  well, — and  I 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  47 

guess  they  can  get  along.  My  wife  feels  more  ac 
quainted  since  she  met  Mrs.  March,  and  I  sha'n't  feel 
so  much  like  leavin'  her  among  strangers  here.  I 
don't  know  when  she's  taken  such  a  fancy  to  any  one 
as  she  has  to  your  wife,  or  Miss  Gage  either.  I  guess 
she'll  want  to  ask  her  about  the  stores." 

I  said  that  I  believed  the  fancy  was  mutual,  and 
that  there  was  nothing  my  wife  liked  better  than  tell 
ing  people  about  stores.  I  added,  in  generalization, 
that  when  a  woman  had  spent  all  her  own  money  on 
dress,  it  did  her  quite  as  much  good  to  see  other  wom 
en  spending  theirs ;  and  Deering  said  he  guessed  that 
was  about  so.  He  gave  me  a  push  on  the  shoulder  to 
make  me  understand  how  keenly  he  appreciated  the 
joke,  and  I  perceived  that  we  had  won  his  heart,  too. 

We  joined  the  ladies,  and  I  thought  that  my  suffer 
ings  for  her  authorized  me  to  attach  myself  more 
especially  to  Miss  Gage,  and  to  find  out  all  I  could 
about  her.  We  walked  ahead  of  the  others,  and  I 
was  aware  of  her  making  believe  that  it  was  quite  the 
same  as  if  she  were  going  to  the  music  with  a  young 
man.  Not  that  she  seemed  disposed  to  trifle  with  my 
gray  hairs ;  I  quickly  saw  that  this  would  not  be  in 
character  with  her;  but  some  sort  of  illusion  was 
essential  to  her  youth,  and  she  could  not  help  rejuve- 


48  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

nating  me.  This  was  quite  like  the  goddess  she  looked, 
I  reflected,  but  otherwise  she  was  not  formidably 
divine,  and,  in  fact,  I  suppose  the  goddesses  were, 
after  all,  only  nice  girls  at  heart.  This  one,  at  any 
rate,  I  decided,  was  a  very  nice  girl  when  she  was  not 
sulking ;  and  she  was  so  brightened  by  her  little  ad 
venture,  which  was  really  no  adventure,  that  I  could 
not  believe  I  had  ever  seen  her  sulking. 

The  hotel  people  did  not  keep  us  from  going  into 
the  court  of  the  hotel,  as  I  was  afraid  they  might,  and 
we  all  easily  found  places.  In  the  pauses  of  the  mu 
sic  I  pointed  out  such  notables  and  characters  as  I  saw 
about  us,  and  tried  to  possess  her  of  as  much  of  the 
Saratoga  world  as  I  knew.  It  was  largely  there  in 
that  bold  evidence  it  loves,  and  in  that  social  solitude 
to  which  the  Saratoga  of  the  hotels  condemns  the  den 
izens  of  her  world.  I  do  not  mean  that  the  Saratoga 
crowd  is  at  all  a  fast-looking  crowd.  There  are  sport 
ing  people  and  gamblers ;  but  the  great  mass  of  the 
frequenters  are  plain,  honest  Americans,  out  upon  a 
holiday  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  and  of  an  inno 
cence  too  inveterate  to  have  grasped  the  fact  that  there 
is  no  fashion  in  Saratoga  now  but  the  fashion  of  the 
ladies'  dresses.  These,  I  must  say,  are  of  the  newest 
and  prettiest ;  the  dressing  of  the  women  always  strikes 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  49 

me  there.  My  companion  was  eager  to  recognize  the 
splendors  which  she  had  heard  of,  and  I  pointed  out 
an  old  lady  by  the  door,  who  sat  there  displaying 
upon  her  vast  person  an  assortment  of  gems  and  jewels 
which  she  seemed  as  personally  indifferent  to  as  if  she 
were  a  show-window,  and  I  was  glad  to  have  the  girl 
shrink  from  the  spectacle  in  a  kind  of  mute  alarm.  I 
tried  to  make  her  share  my  pleasure  in  a  group  of 
Cubans — fat  father,  fat  mother,  fat  daughter — who 
came  down  the  walk  toward  us  in  the  halo  of  tropical 
tradition ;  but  she  had  not  the  taste  for  olives,  and  I 
saw  that  I  failed  to  persuade  her  of  the  aesthetic  value 
of  this  alien  element  among  us.  She  apparently  could 
do  almost  as  little  with  some  old  figures  of  bygone 
beaus  spectrally  revisiting  the  hotel  haunts  of  their 
youth ;  but  she  was  charmed  with  the  sylvan  loveliness 
of  that  incomparable  court.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  park  of 
the  tall,  slim  Saratoga  trees  inclosed  by  the  quadrangle 
of  the  hotel,  exquisitely  kept,  and  with  its  acres  of 
greensward  now  showing  their  color  vividly  in  the  light 
of  the  electrics,  which  shone  from  all  sides  on  the 
fountain  flashing  and  plashing  in  the  midst.  I  said 
that  here  was  that  union  of  the  sylvan  and  th«  urban 
which  was  always  the  dream  of  art,  and  which  formed 
the  delicate  charm  of  pastoral  poetry ;  and  although 
D 


50  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  ; 

I  do  not  think  she  quite  grasped  the  notion,  I  saw 
that  she  had  a  pleasure  in  the  visible  fact,  and  that 
was  much  better.  Besides,  she  listened  very  respect 
fully,  and  with  no  signs  of  being  bored. 

In  the  wait  between  the  two  parts  of  the  concert,  I 
invited  her  to  walk  around  the  court  with  me,  and  un 
der  the  approving  eye  of  Mrs.  March  we  made  this 
expedition.  It  seemed  to  me  that  I  could  not  do  a 
wiser  thing,  both  for  the  satisfaction  of  my  own  curi 
osity  and  for  the  gratification  of  the  autobiographical 
passion  we  all  feel,  than  to  lead  her  on  to  speak  of  her 
self.  But  she  had  little  or  nothing  to  say  of  herself, 
and  what  she  said  of  other  things  was  marked  by  a 
straightforward  good  sense,  if  not  a  wide  intelligence. 
I  think  we  make  a  mistake  when  we  suppose  that  a 
beautiful  woman  must  always  be  vain  or  conscious.  I 
fancy  that  a  beauty  is  quite  as  often  a  solid  and  sensi 
ble  person,  with  no  inordinate  wish  to  be  worshiped, 
and  this  young  lady  struck  me  as  wholly  unspoiled  by 
flattery.  I  decided  that  she  was  not  the  type  that  would 
take  the  fancy  of  De  Witt  Point,  and  that  she  had 
grown  up  without  local  attention  for  that  reason,  or 
possibly  because  a  certain  coldness  in  her  overawed  the 
free  spirit  of  rustic  love-making.  No  doubt  she  knew 
that  she  was  beautiful,  and  I  began  to  think  that  it  was 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  51 

not  so  much  disappointment  at  finding  Saratoga  as  in 
different  as  De  Witt  Point  which  gave  her  the  effect  of 
disgust  I  had  first  noted  in  her  the  night  before.  That 
might  rather  have  come  from  the  sense  of  feeling  her 
self  a  helpless  burden  on  her  friends,  and  from  that 
young  longing  for  companionship  which  is  as  far  as 
may  be  from  the  desire  of  conquest,  of  triumph.  Find 
ing  her  now  so  gratefully  content  with  the  poor  efforts 
to  amuse  her  which  an  old  fellow  like  me  could  make,  I 
perceived  that  the  society  of  other  girls  would  suffice 
to  make  Saratoga  quite  another  thing  for  her,  and  I 
cast  about  in  my  mind  to  contrive  this  somehow. 

I  confess  that  I  liked  her  better  and  better,  and  be 
fore  the  evening  was  out  I  had  quite  transferred  my 
compassion  from  the  Deerings  to  her.  It  was  forlorn 
and  dreary  for  her  to  be  attached  to  this  good  couple, 
whose  interests  were  primarily  in  each  other,  and  who 
had  not  the  first  of  those  arts  which  could  provide  her 
with  other  company.  She  willingly  told  about  their 
journey  to  Saratoga,  and  her  story  did  not  differ  ma 
terially  from  the  account  Deering  had  already  given 
me ;  but  even  the  outward  form  of  adventure  had  fall 
en  from  their  experience  since  they  had  come  to  Sar 
atoga.  They  had  formed  the  habit  of  Congress  Park 
by  accident ;  but  they  had  not  been  to  the  lake,  or  the 


52  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

races,  or  the  House  of  Pansa,  or  Mount  McGregor,  or 
Hilton  Park,  or  even  the  outlying  springs.  It  was  the 
first  time  they  had  been  inside  of  the  Grand  Union. 
"  Then  you  have  never  seen  the  parlor  ?  "  I  asked ;  and 
after  the  concert  I  boldly  led  the  way  into  the  parlor, 
and  lavished  its  magnificence  upon  them  as  if  I  had 
been  the  host,  or  one  of  the  hotel  guests  at  the  very 
least.  I  enjoyed  the  breathlessness  of  the  Deerings  so 
much,  as  we  walked  up  and  down  the  vast  drawing- 
rooms  accompanied  by  our  images  in  the  mirrors,  that  I 
insisted  upon  sitting  down  with  them  all  upon  some  of 
the  richest  pieces  of  furniture  ;  and  I  was  so  flown  with 
my  success  as  cicerone  that  I  made  them  come  with 
me  to  the  United  States.  I  showed  them  through  the 
parlors  there,  and  then  led  them  through  to  the  inner 
veranda,  which  commanded  another  wooded  court  like 
that  of  the  Grand  Union.  I  tried  to  make  them  feel 
the  statelier  sentiment  of  the  older  hotel,  and  to  stir 
their  imaginations  with  a  picture  of  the  old  times, 
when  the  Southern  planters  used  to  throng  the  place, 
and  all  that  was  gay  and  brilliant  in  fashionable  society 
was  to  be  seen  there  some  time  during  the  summer.  I 
think  that  I  failed  in  this,  but  apparently  I  succeeded 
in  giving  them  an  evening  of  dazzling  splendor. 

"  Well,  sir,  this  has  been  a  great  treat,"  said  Mr. 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  53 

Deering,  when  he  bade  us  good-by  as  well  as  good 
night ;  he  was  going  early  in  the  morning. 

The  ladies  murmured  their  gratitude,  Mrs.  Deering 
with  an  emotion  that  suited  her  thanks,  and  Miss  Gage 
with  a  touch  of  something  daughterly  toward  me  that 
I  thought  pretty. 


VI. 

"  WELL,  what  did  you  make  of  her,  my  dear  ?  "  Mrs. 
March  demanded  the  instant  she  was  beyond  their 
hearing.  "  I  must  say,  you  didn't  spare  yourself  in 
the  cause ;  you  did  bravely.  What  is  she  like  ? " 

"  Really,  I  don't  know,"  I  answered,  after  a  mo 
ment's  reflection.  "  I  should  say  she  was  almost  pure 
ly  potential.  She's  not  so  much  this  or  that  kind  of 
girl ;  she's  merely  a  radiant  image  of  girlhood." 

"  Now,  you're  chicquing  it,  you're  faking  it,"  said 
Mrs.  March,  borrowing  the  verbs  severally  from  the 
art  editor  and  the  publisher  of  "  Every  Other  Week." 
"  You  have  got  to  tell  me  just  how  much  and  how  lit 
tle  there  really  is  of  her  before  I  go  any  further  with 
them.  Is  she  stupid  ? " 

"  No — no ;  I  shouldn't  say  stupid  exactly.  She  is 
— what  shall  I  say  ? — extremely  plain-minded.  I  sup 
pose  the  goddesses  were  plain-minded.  I'm  a  little 
puzzled  by  her  attitude  toward  her  own  beauty.  She 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  55 

doesn't  live  her  beauty  any  more  than  a  poet  lives  his 
poetry  or  a  painter  his  painting ;  though  I've  no  doubt 
she  knows  her  gift  is  hers  just  as  they  do." 

"  I  think  I  understand.  You  mean  she  isn't  con 
scious." 

"  No.  Conscious  isn't  quite  the  word,"  I  said,  fas 
tidiously.  "  Isn't  there  some  word  that  says  less,  or 
more,  in  the  same  direction  ?  " 

"  No,  there  isn't ;  and  I  shall  think  you  don't  mean 
anything  at  all  if  you  keep  on.  Now,  tell  me  how  she 
really  impressed  you.  Does  she  know  anything  ?  Has 
she  read  anything  ?  Has  she  any  ideas  ? " 

"  Really,  I  can't  say  whether  they  were  ideas  or  not. 
She  knew  what  'Every  Other  Week'  was;  she  had 
read  the  stories  in  it;  but  I'm  not  sure  she  valued  it 
at  its  true  worth.  She  is  very  plain-minded." 

"  Don't  keep  repeating  that !  What  do  you  mean 
by  plain-minded  ? " 

"Well,  honest,  single,  common-sense,  coherent, 
arithmetical." 

"  Horrors  !     Do  you  mean  that  she  is  mannish  ?  " 

"  No,  not  mannish.  And  yet  she  gave  me  the  no 
tion  that,  when  it  came  to  companionship,  she  would 
be  just  as  well  satisfied  with  a  lot  of  girls  as  young 
men." 


56  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

Mrs.  March  pulled  her  hand  out  of  my  arm,  and 
stopped  short  under  one  of  those  tall  Saratoga  shade- 
trees  to  dramatize  her  inference.  "  Then  she  is  the 
slyest  of  all  possible  pusses !  Did  she  give  you  the 
notion  that  she  would  be  just  as  well  satisfied  with  you 
as  with  a  young  man  !  " 

"  She  couldn't  deceive  me  so  far  as  that,  my  dear." 

"  Very  well ;  I  shall  take  her  in  hand  myself  to-mor 
row,  and  find  out  what  she  really  is." 

Mrs.  March  went  shopping  the  next  forenoon  with 
what  was  left  of  the  Deering  party  ;  Deering  had  taken 
the  early  train  north,  and  she  seemed  to  have  found 
the  ladies  livelier  without  him.  She  formed  the  im 
pression  from  their  more  joyous  behavior  that  he  kept 
his  wife  from  spending' as  much  money  as  she  would 
naturally  have  done,  and  that,  while  he  was  not  per 
haps  exactly  selfish,  he  was  forgetful  of  her  youth,  of 
the  difference  in  years  between  them,  and  of  her  ca 
pacity  for  pleasures  which  he  could  not  care  for.  She 
said  that  Mrs.  Deering  and  Miss  Gage  now  acted  like 
two  girls  together,  and,  if  anything,  Miss  Gage  seemed 
the  elder  of  the  two. 

"  And  what  did  you  decide  about  her  ? "  I  inquired. 

"  Well,  I  helped  her  buy  a  hat  and  a  jacket  at  one 
of  those  nice  shops  just  below  the  hotel  where  they're 


A    SARATOGA   IDYL.  57 

stopping,  and  we've  started  an  evening  dress  for  her. 
She  can't  wear  that  white  duck  morning,  noon,  and 
night." 

"  But  her  character — her  nature  ? " 

"  Oh  !  Well,  she  is  rather  plain-minded,  as  you  call 
it.  I  think  she  shows  out  her  real  feelings  too  much 
for  a  woman." 

"  Why  do  you  prefer  dissimulation  in  your  sex,  my 
dear?" 

"  I  don't  call  it  dissimulation.  But  of  course  a  girl 
ought  to  hide  her  feelings.  Don't  you  think  it  would 
have  been  better  for  her  not  to  have  looked  so  obvi 
ously  out  of  humor  when  you  first  saw  her  the  other 
night  ? " 

"  She  wouldn't  have  interested  me  so  much,  then, 
and  she  probably  wouldn't  have  had  your  acquaintance 
now." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  mean  to  say  that  even  that  kind  of 
girl  won't  get  on,  if  she  gives  her  mind  to  it;  but  I 
think  I  should  prefer  a  little  less  plain-mindedness,  as 
you  call  it,  if  I  were  a  man." 

I  did  not  know  exactly  what  to  say  to  this,  and  I 
let  Mrs.  March  go  on. 

"  It's  so  in  the  smallest  thing.  If  you're  choosing 
a  thing  for  her,  and  she  likes  another,  she  lets  you  feel 


58  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

it  at  once.  I  don't  mean  that  she's  rude  about  it,  but 
she  seems  to  set  herself  so  square  across  the  way,  and 
you  come  up  with  a  kind  of  bump  against  her.  I 
don't  think  that's  very  feminine.  That's  what  I  mean 
by  mannish.  You  always  know  where  to  find  her." 

I  don't  know  why  this  criticism  should  have  amused 
me  so  much,  but  I  began  to  laugh  quite  uncontrollably, 
and  I  laughed  on  and  on.  Mrs.  March  kept  her  tem 
per  with  me  admirably.  When  I  was  quiet  again,  she 
said: 

"  Mrs.  Deering  is  a  person  that  wins  your  heart  at 
once;  she  has  that  appealing  quality.  You  can  see 
that  she's  cowed  by  her  husband,  though  he  means  to 
be  kind  to  her ;  and  yet  you  may  be  sure  she  gets 
round  him,  and  has  her  own  way  all  the  time.  I  know 
it  was  her  idea  to  have  him  go  home  and  leave  them 
here,  and  of  course  she  made  him  think  it  was  his. 
She  saw  that  as  long  as  he  was  here,  and  anxious  to 
get  back  to  his  *  stock,'  there  was  no  hope  of  giving 
Miss  Gage  the  sort  of  chance  she  came  for,  and  so  she 
determined  to  manage  it.  At  the  same  time,  you  can 
see  that  she  is  true  as  steel,  and  would  abhor  anything 
like  deceit  worse  than  the  pest." 

"  I  see ;  and  that  is  why  you  dislike  Miss  Gage  ? " 

"  Dislike  her  ?     No,  I  don't  dislike  her ;  but  she  is 


A    SARATOGA   IDYL.  59 

disappointing.  If  she  were  a  plain  girl  her  plain- 
mindedness  would  be  all  right ;  it  would  be  amusing ; 
she  would  turn  it  to  account  and  make  it  seem  humor 
ous.  But  it  doesn't  seem  to  go  with  her  beauty ;  it 
takes  away  from  that — I  don't  know  how  to  express 
it  exactly." 

"  You  mean  that  she  has  no  charm." 

"  No :  I  don't  mean  that  at  all.  She  has  a  great 
deal  of  charm  of  a  certain  kind,  but  it's  a  very  peculiar 
kind.  After  all,  the  truth  is  the  truth,  Basil,  isn't 
it?" 

"  It  is  sometimes,  my  dear,"  I  assented. 

"  And  the  truth  has  its  charm,  even  when  it's  too 
blunt." 

"  Ah,  I'm  not  so  sure  of  that." 

"  Yes — yes,  it  has.  You  mustn't  say  so,  Basil,  or 
I  shall  lose  all  my  faith  in  you.  If  I  couldn't  trust 
you  I  don't  know  what  I  should  do." 

"  What  are  you  after  now,  Isabel  ? " 

"  I  am  not  after  anything.  I  want  you  to  go  round 
to  all  the  hotels  and  see  if  there  is  not  some  young 
man  you  know  at  one  of  them.  There  surely  must 
be." 

"  Would  one  young  man  be  enough  ? " 

"  If  he  were  attentive  enough,  he  would  be.     One 


60  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

young  man  is  as  good  as  a  thousand  if  the  girl  is  the 
right  kind." 

"  But  you  have  just  been  implying  that  Miss  Gage 
is  cold  and  selfish  and  greedy.  Shall  I  go  round  ex 
ploring  hotel  registers  for  a  victim  to  such  a  divinity 
as  that  ? " 

"  No  ;  you  needn't  go  till  I  have  had  a  talk  with  her. 
I  am  not  sure  she  is  worth  it ;  I  am  not  sure  that  I 
want  to  do  a  single  thing  for  her." 


VII. 

THE  next  day,  after  another  forenoon's  shopping 
with  her  friends,  Mrs.  March  announced  :  "  Well,  now, 
it  has  all  come  out,  Basil,  and  I  wonder  you  didn't 
get  the  secret  at  once  from  your  Mr.  Deering.  Have 
you  been  supposing  that  Miss  Gage  was  a  poor  girl 
whom  the  Deerings  had  done  the  favor  of  bringing 
with  them  ? " 

"  Why,  what  of  it? "  I  asked,  provisionally. 
^   "  She  is  very  well  off.     Her  father  is  not  only  the 
president,  as  they  call  it,  of  the  village,  but  he's  the 
president  of  the  bank." 

"  Yes ;  I  told  you  that  Deering  told  me  so — 

"  But  he  is  very  queer.  He  has  kept  her  very  close 
from  the  other  young  people,  and  Mrs.  Deering  is  the 
only  girl  friend  she's  ever  had,  and  she's  grown  up 
without  having  been  anywhere  without  him.  They 
had  to  plead  with  him  to  let  her  come  with  them, — 
or  Mrs.  Deering  had, — but  when  he  once  consented, 


62  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

he  consented  handsomely.  He  gave  her  a  lot  of 
money,  and  told  them  he  wanted  her  to  have  the  best 
time  that  money  could  buy ;  and  of  course  you  can  un 
derstand  how  such  a  man  would  think  that  money  would 
buy  a  good  time  anywhere.  But  the  Deerings  didn't 
know  how  to  go  about  it.  She  confessed  as  much 
when  we  were  talking  the  girl  over.  I  could  see  that 
she  stood  in  awe  of  her  somehow  from  the  beginning, 
and  that  she  felt  more  than  the  usual  responsibility 
for  her.  That  was  the  reason  she  was  so  eager  to  get 
her  husband  off  home ;  as  long  as  he  was  with  them 
she  would  have  to  work  everything  through  him,  and 
that  would  be  double  labor,  because  he  is  so  hopelessly 
villaginous,  don't  you  know,  that  he  never  could  rise 
to  the  conception  of  anything  else.  He  took  them  to 
a  cheap,  second-class  hotel,  and  he  was  afraid  to  go 
with  them  anywhere  because  he  never  was  sure  that  it 
was  the  right  thing,  to  do ;  and  he  was  too  proud  to 
ask,  and  they  had  to  keep  prodding  him  all  the  time." 

"  That's  delightful !  " 

"  Oh,  I  dare  say  you  think  so ;  but  if  you  knew  how 
it  wounded  a  woman's  self-respect  you  would  feel  dif 
ferently ;  or  you  wouldn't,  rather.  But  now,  thank 
goodness !  they've  got  him  off  their  hands,  and  they 
can  begin  to  breathe  freely.  That  is,  Mrs.  Deering 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  63 

could,  if  she  hadn't  her  heart  in  her  mouth  all  the 
time,  wondering  what  she  can  do  for  the  girl,  and  bul 
lying  herself  with  the  notion  that  she  is  to  blame  if 
she  doesn't  have  a  good  time.  You  can  understand 
just  how  it  was  with  them  always.  Mrs.  Peering  is 
one  of  those  meek  little  things  that  a  great,  splendid, 
lonely  creature  like  Miss  Gage  would  take  to  in  a  small 
place,  and  perfectly  crush  under  the  weight  of  her  con 
fidence;  arid  she  would  want  to  make  her  husband 
live  up  to  her  ideal  of  the  girl,  and  would  be  miserable 
because  he  wouldn't  or  couldn't." 

"  I  believe  the  good  Deering  didn't  even  think  her 
handsome." 

"That's  it.  And  he  thought  anything  that  was 
good  enough  for  his  wife  was  good  enough  for  Miss 
Gage,  and  he'd  be  stubborn  about  doing  things  on  her 
account,  even  to  please  his  wife." 

"  Such  conduct  is  imaginable  of  the  good  Deering. 
I  don't  think  he  liked  her." 

"  Nor  she  him.  Mrs.  Deering  helplessly  hinted  as 
much.  She  said  he  didn't  like  to  have  her  worrying 
so  much  about  Miss  Gage's  not  having  a  good  time, 
and  she  couldn't  make  him  feel  as  she  did  about  it, 
and  she  was  half  glad  for  his  own  sake  that  he  had  to 
go  home." 


64  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

"  Did  she  say  that  ?  " 

"  Not  exactly ;  but  you  could  see  that  she  meant  it. 
Do  you  think  it  would  do  for 'them  to  change  from 
their  hotel,  and  go  to  the  Grand  Union  or  the  States 
or  Congress  Hall?" 

"  Have  you  been  putting  them  up  to  that,  Isabel  ? " 

"  I  knew  you  would  suspect  me,  and  I  wouldn't 
have  asked  for  your  opinion  if  I  had  cared  anything 
for  it,  really.  What  would  be  the  harm  of  their  doing 
it?" 

"  None  whatever,  if  you  really  want  my  worthless 
opinion.  But  what  could  they  do  there  ? " 

"  They  could  see  something  if  they  couldn't  do  any 
thing,  and  as  soon  as  Miss  Gage  has  got  her  new 
gowns  I'm  going  to  tell  them  you  thought  they  could 
do  it.  It  was  their  own  idea,  at  any  rate." 

"Miss  Gage's?" 

"Mrs.  Deering's.  She  has  the  courage  of  a — I 
don't  know  what.  She  s^es  that  it's  a  desperate  case, 
and  she  wouldn't  stop  at  anything." 

"  Now  that  her  husband  has  gone  home." 

"  Well,  which  hotel  shall  they  go  to  ?  " 

"  Oh,  that  requires  reflection." 

"  Very  well,  then,  when  you've  reflected  I  want  you 
to  go  to  the  hotel  you've  chosen,  and  introduce  your- 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  65 

self  to  the  clerk,  and  tell  him  your  wife  has  two 
friends  coming,  and  you  want  something  very  plea&ant 
for  them.  Tell  him  all  about  yourself  and  'Every 
Other  Week.' " 

"  He'll  think  I  want  them  deadheaded." 

"No  matter,  if  your  conscience  is  clear;  and  don't 
be  so  shamefully  modest  as  you  always  are,  but  speak 
up  boldly.  Now,  will  you  ?  Promise  me  you  will !  " 

"  I  will  try,  as  the  good  little  boy  says.  But,  Isabel, 
we  don't  know  these  people  except  from  their  own 
account." 

"And  that  is  quite  enough." 

"  It  will  be  quite  enough  for  the  hotel-keeper  if 
they  run  their  board.  I  shall  have  to  pay  it." 

"  Now,  Basil  dear,  don't  be  disgusting,  and  go  and 
do  as  you're  bid." 

It  was  amusing,  but  it  was  perfectly  safe,  and  there 
was  no  reason  why  I  should  not  engage  rooms  for  the 
ladies  at  another  hotel.  I  had  not  the  least  question 
of  them,  and  I  had  failed  to  worry  my  wife  with  a  pre 
tended  doubt.  So  I  decided  that  I  would  go  up  at 
once  and  inquire  at  the  Grand  Union.  I  chose  this 
hotel  because,  though  it  lacked  the  fine  flower  of  the 
more  ancient  respectability  and  the  legendary  charm  of 
the  States,  it  was  so  spectacular  that  it  would  be  in 
E 


66  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

itself  a  perpetual  excitement  for  those  ladies,  and  would 
form  an  effect  of  society  which,  with  some  help  from 
us,  might  very  well  deceive  them.  This  was  what  I 
said  to  myself,  though  in  my  heart  I  knew  better. 
Whatever  Mrs.  Deering  might  think,  that  girl  was  not 
going  to  be  taken  in  with  any  such  simple  device,  and 
I  must  count  upon  the  daily  chances  in  the  place  to 
afford  her  the  good  time  she  had  come  for. 

As  I  mounted  the  steps  to  the  portico  of  the  Grand 
Union  with  my  head  down,  and  lost  in  a  calculation  of 
these  chances,  I  heard  my  name  gayly  called,  and  I 
looked  up  to  see  young  Kendricks,  formerly  of  our 
staff  on  "Every  Other  Week,"  and  still  a  frequent  con 
tributor,  and  a  great  favorite  of  my  wife's  and  my 
own.  My  heart  gave  a  great  joyful  bound  at  sight  of 
him. 

"  My  dear  boy,  when  in  the  world  did  you  come  ? " 

"  This  morning  by  the  steamboat  train,  and  I  am 
never,  never  going  away !  " 

"  You  like  it,  then  ? " 

"Like  it!  It's  the  most  delightful  thing  in  the 
universe.  WThy,  I'm  simply  wild  about  it,  Mr.  March. 
I  go  round  saying  to  myself,  Why  have  I  thrown  away 
my  life  ?  Why  have  I  never  come  to  Saratoga  before  ? 
It's  simply  supreme,  and  it's  American  down  to  the 


A   SARATOGA    IDYL.  67 

ground.  Yes ;  that's  what  makes  it  so  delightful.  No 
other  people  could  have  invented  it,  and  it  doesn't 
try  to  be  anything  but  what  we  made  it." 

"  I'm  so  glad  you  look  at  it  in  that  way.  We  like 
it.  We  discovered  it  three  or  four  years  ago,  and  we 
never  let  a  summer  slip,  if  we  can  help  it,  without 
coming  here  for  a  week  or  a  month.  The  place,"  I 
enlarged,  "  has  the  charm  of  ruin,  though  it's  in  such 
obvious  repair ;  it  has  a  past ;  it's  so  completely  gone 
by  in  a  society  sense.  The  cottage  life  here  hasn't 
killed  the  hotel  life,  as  it  has  at  Newport  and  Bar  Har 
bor  ;  but  the  ideal  of  cottage  life  everywhere  else  has 
made  hotel  life  at  Saratoga  ungenteel.  The  hotels  are 
full,  but  at  the  same  time  they  are  society  solitudes." 

"  How  gay  it  is ! "  said  the  young  fellow,  as  he 
gazed  with  a  pensive  smile  into  the  street,  where  all 
those  festive  vehicles  were  coming  and  going,  dappled 
by  the  leaf-shadows  from  the  tall  trees  overhead. 
"  What  air !  what  a  sky  ! "  The  one  was  indeed  spark 
ling,  and  the  other  without  a  cloud,  for  it  had  rained 
in  the  night,  and  it  seemed  as  if  the  weather  could 
never  be  hot  and  close  again. 

I  forgot  how  I  had  been  sweltering  about,  and  said  : 
"  Yes ;  it  is  a  Saratoga  day.  It's  supposed  that  the 
sparkle  of  the  air  comes  from  the  healthful  gases 


68  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY: 

thrown  off  by  the  springs.  Some  people  say  the 
springs  are  doctored ;  that's  what  makes  their  gases  so 
healthful." 

"  Why,  anything  might  happen  here,"  Kendricks 
mused,  unheedful  of  me.  "  What  a  scene !  what  a 
stage  !  Why  has  nobody  done  a  story  about  Sarato 
ga  ?  "  he  asked,  with  a  literary  turn  I  knew  his  thoughts 
would  be  taking.  All  Gerald  Kendricks's  thoughts 
were  of  literature,  but  sometimes  they  were  not  of  im 
mediate  literary  effect,  though  that  was  never  for  long. 

"  Because,"  I  suggested,  "  one  probably  couldn't 
get  his  young  lady  characters  to  come  here  if  they 
were  at  all  in  society.  But  of  course  there  must  be 
charming  presences  here  accidentally.  Some  young 
girl,  say,  might  come  here  from  a  country  place,  ex 
pecting  to  see  social  gayety — 

"  Ah,  but  that  would  be  too  heart-breaking !  " 

"  Not  at  all.  Not  if  she  met  some  young  fellow 
accidentally — don't  you  see  ? " 

"  It  would  be  difficult  to  manage ;  and  hasn't  it  been 
done?" 

"  Everything  has  been  done,  my  dear  fellow.  Or, 
you  might  suppose  a  young  lady  who  comes  on  here 
with  her  father,  a  veteran  politician,  delegate  to  the 
Republican  or  Democratic  convention, — all  the  conven- 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  69 

tions  meet  in  Saratoga, — and  some  ardent  young  del 
egate  falls  in  love  with  her.  That  would  be  new  ground. 
There  you  would  have  the  political  novel,  which  they 
wonder  every  now  and  then  some  of  us  don't  write." 
The  smile  faded  from  Kendricks's  lips,  and  I  laughed. 
"  Well,  then,  there's  nothing  for  it  but  the  Social 
Science  Congress.  Have  a  brilliant  professor  win  the 
heart  of  a  lovely  sister-in-law  of  another  member  hv  a 
paper  he  reads  before  the  Congress.  No?  You're 
difficult.  Are  you  stopping  here  ?  " 

"  Yes  ;  are  you  ? " 

"  I  try  to  give  myself  the  air  of  it  when  I  am  fool 
ing  very  proud.  But  really,  we  live  at  a  most  charm 
ing  little  hotel  on  a  back  street,  out  of  the  whirl  and 
rush  that  we  should  prefer  to  be  in  if  we  could  afford 
it."  He  said  it  must  be  delightful,  and  he  made  the 
proper  inquiries  about  Mrs.  March.  Kendricks  never 
forgot  the  gentleman  in  the  artist,  and  he  was  as  true 
to  the  convenances  as  if  they  had  been  principles. 
That  was  what  made  Mrs.  March  like  his  stories  so 
much  more  than  the  stories  of  some  people  who  wrote 
better.  He  said  he  would  drop  in  during  the  after 
noon,  and  I  went  indoors  on  the  pretext  of  buying  a 
newspaper.  Then,  without  engaging  rooms  for  Mrs. 
Deering  and  Miss  Gage,  I  hurried  home. 


VIII. 

"  WELL,  did  you  get  the  rooms  ? "  asked  my  wife  as 
soon  as  she  saw  me.  She  did  not  quite  call  it  across 
the  street  to  me  as  I  came  up  from  where  she  sat  on 
the  piazza. 

"  No,  I  didn't,"  I  said  boldly,  if  somewhat  breath 
lessly. 

"  Why  didn't  you  ?  You  ought  to  have  gone  to  the 
States  if  they  were  full  at  the  Grand  Union." 

"  They  were  not  full,  unless  Kendricks  got  their 
last  room." 

"  Do  you  mean  that  he  was  there  ?  Mr.  Kendricks  ? 
If  you  are  hoaxing  me,  Basil !  " 

"  I  am  not,  my  dear ;  indeed  I'm  not,"  said  I,  be 
ginning  to  laugh,  and  this  made  her  doubt  me  the 
more. 

"  Because  if  you  are  I  shall  simply  never  forgive 
you.  And  I'm  in  earnest  this  time,"  she  replied. 

"  Why  should  I  want  to  hoax  you  about  such  a  vital 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  71 

thing  as  that.  Couldn't  Kendricks  come  to  Saratoga 
as  well  as  we  ?  He's  here  looking  up  the  ground  of  a 
story  I  should  think  from  what  he  said." 

"  No  matter  what  he's  here  for ;  he's  here,  and 
that's  enough.  I  never  knew  of  anything  so  perfectly 
providential.  Did  you  tell  him,  Basil?  Did  you 
dare?" 

"  Tell  him  what  ?  " 

"You  know  ;  about  Miss  Gage." 

"  Well,  I  came  very  near  it.  I  dangled  the  fact  be 
fore  his  eyes  once,  but  I  caught  it  away  again  in  time, 
He  never  saw  it.  I  thought  I'd  better  let  you  tell 
him." 

"  Is  he  coming  here  to  see  us  ? " 

"  He  asked  if  he  might." 

"  He's  always  nice.  I  don't  know  that  I  shall  ask 
him  to  do  anything  for  them,  after  all ;  I'm  not  sure 
that  she's  worth  it.  I  wish  some  commoner  person 
had  happened  along.  Kendricks  is  too  precious.  I 
shall  have  to  think  about  it ;  and  don't  you  tease  me, 
Basil,  will  you  ?  " 

"I  don't  know.  If  I'm  not  allowed  to  have  any 
voice  in  the  matter,  I'm  afraid  I  shall  take  it  out  in 
teasing.  1  don't  see  why  Miss  Gage  isn't  quite  as  good 
as  Kendricks.  I  believe  she's  taller,  and  though  he's 


72  AN    OPEN  EYED    CONSPIRACY: 

pretty  good-looking,  I  prefer  her  style  of  beauty.  I 
dare  say  his  family  is  better,  but  I  fancy  she's  richer; 
and  his  family  isn't  good  beyond  New  York  city,  and 
her  money  will  go  anywhere.  It's  a  pretty  even 
thing." 

"  Good  gracious,  Basil !  you  talk  as  if  it  were  a 
question  of  marriage." 

"  And  you  think  it  is." 

"  Now  I  see  that  you're  bent  upon  teasing,  and  we 
won't  talk  any  more,  please.  What  time  did  he  say 
he  would  call  ?  " 

"  If  I  mayn't  talk,  I  can't  tell." 

"You  may  talk  that  much." 

"  Well,  then,  he  didn't  say." 

"  Basil,"  said  my  wife,  after  a  moment,  "  if  you 
could  be  serious,  I  should  like  very  much  to  talk  with 
you.  I  know  that  you're  excited  by  meeting  Mr. 
Kendricks,  and  I  know  what  you  thought  the  instant 
you  saw  him.  But,  indeed,  it  won't  do,  my  dear.  It's 
more  than  we've  any  right  to  ask,  and  I  shall  not  ask 
it,  and  I  shall  not  let  you.  She  is  a  stiff,  awkward 
village  person,  and  I  don't  believe  she's  amiable  or  in 
telligent  ;  and  to  let  a  graceful,  refined,  superior  man 
like  Mr.  Kendricks  throw  away  his  time  upon  her 
would  be  wicked,  simply  wicked.  Let  those  people 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  73 

manage  for  themselves  from  this  out.  Of  course  you 
mustn't  get  them  rooms  at  the  Grand  Union  now,  for 
he'd  be  seeing  us  there  with  them,  and  feel  bound  to 
pay  her  attention.  You  must  try  for  them  at  the 
States,  since  the  matter's  been  spoken  of,  or  at  Con 
gress  Hall.  But  there's  no  hurry.  We  must  have 
time  to  think  whether  we  shall  use  Mr.  Kendricks  with 
them.  I  suppose  it  will  do  no  harm  to  introduce  him. 
If  he  stays  we  can't  very  well  avoid  it ;  and  I  confess 
I  should  like  to  see  how  she  impresses  him  !  Of  course 
we  shall  introduce  him  !  But  I  insist  I  shall  just  do 
it  merely  as  one  human  being  to  another ;  and  don't 
you  come  in  with  any  of  your  romantic  nonsense, 
Basil,  about  her  social  disappointment.  Just  how 
much  did  you  give  the  situation  away  ? " 

I  told  as  well  as  I  could  remember. 

"  Well,  that's  nothing.  He'll  never  think  of  it,  and 
you  mustn't  hint  anything  of  the  kind  again." 

I  promised  devoutly,  and  she  went  on : 

"  It  wouldn't  be  nice — it  wouldn't  be  delicate  to  let 
him  into  the  conspiracy.  That  must  be  entirely  our 
affair,  don't  you  see  ?  And  I  don't  want  you  to  take 
a  single  step  without  me.  I  don't  want  you  even  to 
discuss  her  with  him.  Will  you  ?  Because  that  will 
tempt  you  further." 


74  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

That  afternoon  Kendricks  came  promptly  to  call, 
like  the  little  gentleman  he  was,  and  he  was  more 
satisfactory  about  Saratoga  than  he  had  been  in  the 
morning  even.  Mrs.  March  catechized  him,  and  she 
didn't  leave  an  emotion  of  his  unsearched  by  her  vivid 
sympathy.  She  ended  by  saying : 

"  You  must  write  a  story  about  Saratoga.  And  I 
have  got  just  the  heroine  for  you." 

I  started,  but  she  ignored  my  start. 

Kendricks  laughed,  delighted,  and  asked,  "Is  she 
pretty  ? " 

"  Must  a  heroine  be  pretty  ? " 

"She  had  better  be.  Otherwise  she  will  have  to 
be  tremendously  clever  and  say  all  sorts  of  brilliant 
things,  and  that  puts  a  great  burden  on  the  author. 
If  you  proclaim  boldly  at  the  start  that  she's  a  beauty, 
the  illustrator  has  got  to  look  after  her,  and  the  author 
has  a  comparative  sinecure." 

Mrs.  March  thought  a  moment,  and  then  she  said : 
"  Well,  she  is  a  beauty.  I  don't  want  to  make  it  too 
hard  for  you." 

"  When  shall  I  see  her  ? "  Kendricks  demanded,  and 
he  feigned  an  amusing  anxiety. 

"Well,  that  depends  upon  how  you  behave,  Mr. 
Kendricks.  If  you  are  very,  very  good,  perhaps  I  may 


A    SARATOGA   IDYL.  75 

let  you  see  her  this  evening.  We  will  take  you  to  call 
upon  her." 

"Is  it  possible ?  Do  you  mean  business ?  Then 
she  is — in  society  ? " 

"  Mr.  Kendricks ! "  cried  Mrs.  March,  with  bur 
lesque  severity.  "  Do  you  think  that  I  would  offer 
you  a  heroine  who  was  not  in  society  ?  You  forget 
that  I  am  from  Boston  !  " 

"  Of  course,  of  course  !  I  understand  that  any  hero 
ine  of  your  acquaintance  must  be  in  society.  But  I 
thought — I  didn't  know  but  for  the  moment — Sarato 
ga  seems  to  be  so  tremendously  mixed ;  and  Mr.  March 
says  there  is  no  society  here.  But  if  she  is  from  Bos 
ton—" 

"  I  didn't  say  she  was  from  Boston,  Mr.  Kendricks." 

"  Oh,  I  beg  your  pardon  ! " 

"  She  is  from  De  Witt  Point,"  said  Mrs.  March,  and 
she  apparently  enjoyed  his  confusion,  no  less  than  my 
bewilderment  at  the  course  she  was  taking. 

I  was  not  going  to  be  left  behind,  though,  and  I 
said :  "I  discovered  this  heroine  myself,  Kendricks, 
and  if  there  is  to  be  any  giving  away — " 

"  Now,  Basil  I  " 

"I  am  going  to  do  it.  Mrs.  March  would  never 
have  cared  anything  about  her  if  it  hadn't  been  for  me. 


76  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

I  can't  let  her  impose  on  you.  This  heroine  is  no 
more  in  society  than  she  is  from  Boston.  That  is  the 
trouble  with  her.  She  has  come  here  for  society,  and 
she  can't  find  any." 

"  Oh,  that  was  what  you  were  hinting  at  this  morn 
ing,"  said  Kendricks.  "  I  thought  it  a  pure  figment 
of  the  imagination." 

"  One  doesn't  imagine  such  things  as  that,  my  dear 
fellow.  One  imagines  a  heroine  coming  here,  and 
having  the  most  magnificent  kind  of  social  career, — 
lawn-parties,  lunches,  teas,  dinners,  picnics,  hops, — 
and  going  back  to  De  Witt  Point  with  a  dozen  offers 
of  marriage.  That's  the  kind  of  work  the  imagination 
does.  But  this  simple  and  appealing  situation — this 
beautiful  young  girl,  with  her  poor  little  illusions,  her 
secret  hopes  half  hidden  from  herself,  her  ignorant 
past,  her  visionary  future — 

"Now,  /am  going  to  tell  you  all  about  her,  Mr. 
Kendricks,"  Mrs.  March  broke  in  upon  me,  with  defi 
ance  in  her  eye ;  and  she  flung  out  the  whole  fact  with 
a  rapidity  of  utterance  that  would  have  left  far  behind 
any  attempt  of  mine.  But  I  made  no  attempt  to  com 
pete  with  her;  I  contented  myself  with  a  sarcastic 
silence  which  I  could  see  daunted  her  a  little  at  last. 

"  And  all  that  we've  done,  my  dear  fellow," — I  took 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  77 

in  irony  the  word  she  left  to  me, — "  is  to  load  our 
selves  up  with  these  two  impossible  people,  to  go  their 
security  to  destiny,  and  answer  for  their  having  a  good 
time.  We're  in  luck." 

"  Why,  I  don't  know,"  said  Kendricks,  and  I  could 
see  that  his  fancy  was  beginning  to  play  with  the  sit 
uation  ;  "  I  don't  see  why  it  isn't  a  charming  scheme." 

"  Of  course  it  is,"  cried  Mrs.  March,  taking  a  little 
heart  from  his  courage. 

"  We  can't  make  out  yet  whether  the  girl  is  inter 
esting,"  I  put  in  maliciously. 

"  That  is  what  you  say,"  said  my  wife.  "  She  is 
very  shy,  and  of  course  she  wouldn't  show  out  her  real 
nature  to  you.  I  found  her  very  interesting." 

"  Now,  Isabel ! "  I  protested. 

"  She  is  fascinating,"  the  perverse  woman  persisted. 
"  She  has  a  fascinating  dullness." 

Kendricks  laughed  and  I  jeered  at  this  complex 
characterization. 

"  You  make  me  impatient  to  judge  for  myself,"  he 
said. 

"  Will  you  go  with  me  to  call  upon  them  this  even 
ing  ? "  asked  Mrs.  March. 

"  I  shall  be  delighted.  And  you  can  count  upon 
me  to  aid  and  abet  you  in  your  generous  conspiracy, 


78  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY: 

Mrs.  March,  to  the  best  of  my  ability.  There's  noth 
ing  I  should  like  better  than  to  help  you — " 

"  Throw  *  dust  in  her  beautiful  eyes,' "  I  quoted. 

"  Not  at  all,"  said  my  wife.  "  But  to  spread  a  be 
atific  haze  over  everything,  so  that  as  long  as  she  stays 
in  Saratoga  she  shall  see  life  rose-color.  Of  course 
you  may  say  that  it's  a  kind  of  deception — " 

"  Not  at  all ! "  cried  the  young  fellow  in  his  turn. 
"  We  will  make  it  reality.  Then  there  will  be  no  harm 
in  it." 

"  What  a  Jesuitical  casuist !  You  had  better  read 
what  Cardinal  Newman  says  in  his  '  Apologia '  about 
lying,  young  man," 

Neither  of  them  minded  me,  for  just  then  there  was 
a  stir  of  drapery  round  the  corner  of  the  piazza  from 
where  we  were  sitting,  and  the  next  moment  Mrs. 
Deering  and  Miss  Gage  showed  themselves. 

"  We  were  just  talking  of  you,"  said  Mrs.  March. 
"  May  I  present  our  friend  Mr.  Kendricks,  Mrs.  Deer- 
ing  ?  And  Miss  Gage  ? " 

At  sight  of  the  young  man,  so  well  dressed  and 
good-looking,  who  bowed  so  prettily  to  her,  and  then 
bustled  to  place  chairs  for  them,  a  certain  cloud  seemed 
to  lift  from  Miss  Gage's  beautiful  face,  and  to  be  at 
least  partly  broken  on  Mrs.  Deering's  visage.  I  began 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  79 

to  talk  to  the  girl,  and  she  answered  in  good  spirits, 
and  with  more  apparent  interest  in  my  conversation 
than  she  had  yet  shown,  while  Kendricks  very  prop 
erly  devoted  himself  to  the  other  ladies.  Both  his 
eyes  were  on  them,  but  I  felt  that  he  had  a  third  some 
how  upon  her,  and  that  the  smallest  fact  of  her  beauty 
and  grace  was  not  lost  upon  him.  I  knew  that  her 
rich,  tender  voice  was  doing  its  work,  too,  through  the 
commonplaces  she  vouchsafed  to  me.  There  was  a 
moment  when  I  saw  him  lift  a  questioning  eyebrow 
upon  Mrs.  March,  and  saw  her  answer  with  a  fleeting 
frown  of  affirmation.  I  cannot  tell  just  how  it  was 
that,  before  he  left  us,  his  chair  was  on  the  other  side  of 
Miss  Gage's,  and  I  was  eliminated  from  the  dialogue. 

He  did  not  stay  too  long.  There  was  another  tab 
leau  of  him  on  foot,  taking  leave  of  Mrs.  March,  with 
a  high  hand-shake,  which  had  then  lately  come  in,  and 
which  I  saw  the  girl  note,  and  then  bowing  to  her  and 
to  Mrs.  Peering. 

"  Don't  forget,"  my  wife  called  after  him,  with  a 
ready  invention  not  lost  on  his  quick  intelligence, 
"  that  you're  going  to  the  concert  with  us  after  tea. 
Eight  o'clock,  remember." 

"  You  may  be  sure  I  shall  remember  that"  he  re 
turned  gayly. 


IX. 

THE  countenances  of  the  ladies  fell  instantly  when 
he  was  gone.  "  Mrs.  March,"  said  Mrs.  Deering,  with 
a  nervous  tremor,  "did  Mr.  March  get  us  those  rooms 
at  the  Grand  Union  ?  " 

"  No — no,"  my  wife  began,  and  she  made  a  little 
pause,  as  if  to  gather  plausibility.  "  The  Grand  Union 
was  very  full,  and  he  thought  that  at  the  States — " 

"  Because,"  said  Mrs.  Peering,  "  I  don't  know  as 
we  shall  trouble  him,  after  all.  Mr.  Deering  isn't  very 
well,  and  I  guess  we  have  got  to  go  home — " 

"  Go  home  !  "  Mrs.  March  echoed,  and  her  voice  was 
a  tone-scene  of  a  toppling  hope  and  a  wide-spread  des 
olation.  "  Why,  you  mustn't !  " 

"  We  must,  I  guess.  It  had  begun  to  be  very  pleas 
ant,  and — I  guess  I  have  got  to  go.  I  can't  feel  easy 
about  him." 

"  Why,  of  course,"  Mrs.  March  now  assented,  and 
she  waved  her  fan  thoughtfully  before  her  face.  I 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  81 

knew  what  she  was  thinking  of,  and  I  looked  at  Miss 
Gage,  who  had  involuntarily  taken  the  pose  and  ex 
pression  of  the  moment  when  I  first  saw  her  at  the 
kiosk  in  Congress  Park.  "  And  Miss  Gage  ? " 

"  Oh,  yes;  I  must  go,  too,"  said  the  girl,  wistfully, 
forlornly.  She  had  tears  in  her  voice,  tears  of  despair 
and  vexation,  I  should  have  said. 

"  That's  too  bad,"  said  Mrs.  March,  and,  as  she  did 
not  offer  any  solution  of  the  matter,  I  thought  it  rather 
heartless  of  her  to  go  on  and  rub  it  in.  "  And  we 
were  just  planning  some  things  we  could  do  together." 

"  It  can't  be  helped  now,"  returned  the  girl. 

"  But  we  shall  see  you  again  before  you  go  ? "  Mrs. 
March  asked  of  both. 

"  Well,  I  don't  know,"  said  the  girl,  with  a  look  at 
Mrs.  Deering,  who  now  said: 

"  I  guess  so.  We'll  let  you  know  when  we're  go 
ing."  And  they  got  away  rather  stiffly. 

"  Why  in  the  world,  my  dear,"  I  asked,  "  if  you 
weren't  going  to  promote  their  stay,  need  you  prolong 
the  agony  of  their  acquaintance  ?  " 

"  Did  you  feel  that  about  it,  too  ?  Well,  I  wanted 
to  ask  you  first  if  you  thought  it  would  do." 

"What  do?" 

"  You  know ;  get  her  a  room  here.  Because  if  we 
F 


82  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

do  we  shall  have  her  literally  on  our  hands  as  long  as 
we  are  here.  We  shall  have  to  have  the  whole  care 
and  responsibility  of  her,  and  I  wanted  you  to  feel 
just  what  you  were  going  in  for.  You  know  very  well 
I  can't  do  things  by  halves,  and  that  if  I  undertake  to 
chaperon  this  girl  I  shall  chaperon  her — ' 

"  To  the  bitter  end.  Yes ;  I  understand  the  condi 
tions  of  your  uncompromising  conscience.  But  I 
don't  believe  it  will  be  any  such  killing  matter.  There 
are  other  semi-detached  girls  in  the  house ;  she  could 
go  round  with  them." 

We  talked  on,  and,  as  sometimes  happens,  we  con 
vinced  each  other  so  thoroughly  that  she  came  to  my 
ground  and  I  went  to  hers.  Then  it  was  easier  for  us 
to  come  together,  and  after  making  me  go  to  the  clerk 
and  find  out  that  he  had  a  vacant  room,  Mrs.  March 
agreed  with  me  that  it  would  not  do  at  all  to  have 
Miss  Gage  stay  with  us ;  the  fact  that  there  was  a  va 
cant  room  seemed  to  settle  the  question. 

We  were  still  congratulating  ourselves  on  our  es 
cape  when  Mrs.  Deering  suddenly  reappeared  round 
our  corner  of  the  veranda.  She  was  alone,  and  she 
looked  excited. 

"  Oh,  it  isn't  anything,"  she  said  in'  answer  to  the 
alarm  that  showed  itself  in  Mrs.  March's  face  at  sight 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  83 

of  her.  "I  hope  you  won't  think  it's  too  presuming, 
Mrs.  March,  and  I  want  you  to  believe  that  it's  some 
thing  I  have  thought  of  by  myself,  and  that  Julia 
wouldn't  have  let  me  come  if  she  had  dreamed  of  such 
a  thing.  I  do  hate  so  to  take  her  back  with  me,  now 
that  she's  begun  to  have  a  good  time,  and  I  was  won 
dering — wondering  whether  it  would  be  asking  too 
much  if  I  tried  to  get  her  a  room  here.  I  shouldn't 
exactly  like  to  leave  her  in  the  hotel  alone,  though  I 
suppose  it  would  be  perfectly  proper ;  but  Mr.  Deering 
found  out  when  he  was  trying  to  get  rooms  before 
that  there  were  some  young  ladies  staying  by  them 
selves  here,  and  I  didn't  want  to  ask  the  clerk  for  a 
room  unless  you  felt  just  right  about  it." 

"Why,  of  course,  Mrs,  Deering.  It's  a  public 
house,  like  any  other,  and  you  have  as  much  right — 

"  But  I  didn't  want  you  to  think  that  I  would  do  it 
without  asking  you,  and  if  it  is  going  to  be  the  least 
bit  of  trouble  to  you —  The  poor  thing  while  she 
talked  stood  leaning  anxiously  over  toward  Mrs.  March, 
who  had  risen,  and  pressing  the  points  of  her  fingers 
nervously  together. 

"  It  won't,  Mrs.  Deering.  It  will  be  nothing  but 
pleasure.  Why,  certainly.  I  shall  be  delighted  to 
have  Miss  Gage  here,  and  anything  that  Mr.  March 


84  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

and  I  can  do —  Why,  we  had  just  been  talking  of  it, 
and  Mr.  March  has  this  minute  got  back  from  seeing 
the  clerk,  and  she  can  have  a.  very  nice  room.  We 
had  been  intending  to  speak  to  you  about  it  as  soon 
as  we  saw  you." 

I  do  not  know  whether  this  was  quite  true  or  not, 
but  I  was  glad  Mrs.  March  said  it,  from  the  effect  it 
had  upon  Mrs.  Deering.  Tears  of  relief  came  into  her 
eyes,  and  she  said :  "  Then  I  can  go  home  in  the  morn 
ing.  I  was  going  to  stay  on  a  day  or  two  longer,  on 
Julia's  account,  but  I  didn't  feel  just  right  about  Mr. 
Deering,  and  now  I  won't  have  to." 

There  followed  a  flutter  of  polite  offers  and  refusals, 
acknowledgments  and  disavowals,  and  an  understand 
ing  that  I  would  arrange  it  all,  and  that  we  would  come 
to  Mrs.  Deering's  hotel  after  supper  and  see  Miss  Gage 
about  the  when  and  the  how  of  her  coming  to  us. 

"  Well,  Isabel,"  I  said,  after  it  was  all  over,  and 
Mrs.  Deering  had  vanished  in  a  mist  of  happy  tears, 
''  I  suppose  this  is  what  you  call  perfectly  providential. 
Do  you  really  believe  that  Miss  Gage  didn't  send  her 
back  ? " 

"  I  know  she  didn't.  But  I  know  that  she  had  to 
do  it  just  the  same  as  if  Miss  Gage  had  driven  her  at 
the  point  of  the  bayonet." 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  85 

I  laughed  at  this  tragical  image.  "  Can  she  be  such 
a  terror  ? " 

"  She  is  an  ideal.  And  Mrs.  Deering  is  as  afraid  as 
death  of  her.  Of  course  she  has  to  live  up  to  her. 
It's  probably  been  the  struggle  of  her  life,  and  I  can 
quite  imagine  her  letting  her  husband  die  before  she 
would  take  Miss  Gage  back  unless  she  went  back  sat 
isfied." 

"  I  don't  believe  I  can  imagine  so  much  as  that 
exactly,  but  I  can  imagine  her  being  afraid  of  Miss 
Gage's  taking  it  out  of  her  somehow.  Now  she  will 
take  it  out  of  us.  I  hope  you  realize  that  you've  done 
it  now,  my  dear.  To  be  sure,  you  will  have  all  your 
life  to  repent  of  your  rasftness." 

"  I  shall  never  repent,"  Mrs.  March  retorted  hardily. 
"  It  was  the  right  thing,  the  only  thing.  We  couldn't 
have  let  that  poor  creature  stay  on,  when  she  was  so 
anxious  to  get  back  to  her  husband." 

"  No." 

"  And  I  confess,  Basil,  that  I  feel  a  little  pity  for 
that  poor  girl,  too.  It  would  have  been  cruel,  it  would 
have  been  fairly  wicked,  to  let  her  go  home  so  soon, 
and  especially  now." 

"  Oh  !  And  I  suppose  that  by  especially  now,  you 
mean  Kendricks,"  I  said,  and  I  laughed  mockingly,  as 


86  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

the  novelists  say.  "  How  sick  I  am  of  this  stale  old 
love-business  between  young  people  !  We  ought  to 
know  better — we're  old  enough;  at  least  you  are." 

She  seemed  not  to  feel  the  gibe.  "  Why,  Basil," 
she  asked  dreamily,  "  haven't  you  any  romance  left  in 
you  ? " 

"  Romance  ?  Bah  !  It's  the  most  ridiculous  unreality 
in  the*  world.  If  you  had  so  much  sympathy  for  that 
stupid  girl,  in  her  disappointment,  why  hadn't  you  a 
little  for  that  poor  woman  in  her  anxiety  about  her 
sick  husband  ?  But  a  husband  is  nothing — when  you 
have  got  him." 

"  I  did  sympathize  with  her." 

"  You  didn't  say  so."      ' 

"Well,  she  is  only  his  second  wife,  and  I  don't  sup 
pose  it's  anything  serious.  Didn't  I  really  say  any 
thing  to  her  ? " 

"  Not  a  word.  It  is  curious,"  I  went  on,  "  how  we 
let  this  idiotic  love-passion  absorb  us  to  the  very  last. 
It  is  wholly  unimportant  who  marries  who,  or  whether 
anybody  marries  at  all.  And  yet  we  no  sooner  have 
the  making  of  a  love-affair  within  reach  than  we  revert 
to  the  folly  of  our  own  youth,  and  abandon  ourselves 
to  it  as  if  it  were  one  of  the  great  interests  of  life." 

"  Who  is  talking  about  love  ?     It  isn't  a  question  of 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  87 

that.  It's  a  question  of  making  a  girl  have  a  pleasant 
time  for  a  few  days ;  and  what  is  the  harm  of  it  ?  Girls 
have  a  dull  enough  time  at  the  very  best.  My  heart 
aches  for  them,  and  I  shall  never  let  a  chance  slip  to 
help  them,  I  don't  care  what  you  say." 

"  Now,  Isabel,"  I  returned,  "  don't  you  be  a  hum 
bug.  This  is  a  perfectly  plain  case,  and  you  are  going 
in  for  a  very  risky  affair  with  your  eyes  open.  You 
shall  not  pretend  you're  not." 

"  Very  well,  then,  if  I  am  going  into  it  with  my 
eyes  open,  1  shall  look  out  that  nothing  happens." 

"  And  you  think  prevision  will  avail !  I  wish,"  I 
said,  "that  instead  of  coming  home  that  night  and 
telling  you  about  this  girl,  I  had  confined  my  senti 
mentalizing  to  that  young  French-Canadian  mother, 
and  her  dirty  little  boy  who  ate  the  pea-nut  shells.  I've 
no  doubt  it  was  really  a  more  tragical  case.  They 
looked  dreadfully  poor  and  squalid.  Why  couldn't 
I  have  amused  my  idle  fancy  with  their  fortunes — the 
sort  of  husband  and  father  they  had,  their  shabby 
home,  the  struggle  of  their  life  ?  That  is  the  appeal 
that  a  genuine  person  listens  to.  Nothing  does  more 
to  stamp  me  a  poseur  than  the  fact  that  1  preferred  to 
bemoan  myself  for  a  sulky  girl  who  seemed  not  to  be 
having  a  good  time." 


88  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

There  was  truth  in  my  joking,  but  the  truth  did  not 
save  me ;  it  lost  me  rather.  "  Yes,"  said  my  wife ;  "  it 
was  your  fault.  I  should  never  have  seen  anything  in 
her  if  it  had  not  been  for  you.  It  was  your  coming 
back  and  working  me  up  about  her  that  began  the 
whole  thing,  and  now  if  anything  goes  wrong  you  will 
have  yourself  to  thank  for  it." 

She  seized  the  opportunity  of  my  having  jestingly 
taken  up  this  load  to  buckle  it  on  me  tight  and  fast, 
clasping  it  here,  tying  it  there,  and  giving  a  final  pull 
to  the  knots  that  left  me  scarcely  the  power  to  draw 
my  breath,  much  less  the  breath  to  protest.  I  was 
forced  to  hear  her  say  again  that  all  her  concern  from 
the  beginning  was  for  Mrs.  Deering,  and  that  now,  if 
she  had  offered  to  do  something  for  Miss  Gage,  it  was 
not  because  she  cared  anything  for  her,  but  because 
she  cared  everything  for  Mrs.  Deering,  who  could  never 
lift  up  her  head  again  at  De  Witt  Point  if  she  went 
back  so  completely  defeated  in  all  the  purposes  she 
had  in  asking  Miss  Gage  to  come  with  her  to  Saratoga. 

I  did  not  observe  that  this  wave  of  compassion  car 
ried  Mrs.  March  so  far  as  to  leave  her  stranded  with 
Mrs.  Deering  that  evening  when  we  called  with  Ken- 
dricks,  and  asked  her  and  Miss  Gage  to  go  with  us  to 
the  Congress  Park  concert.  Mrs.  Deering  said  that 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.'  89 

she  had  to  pack,  that  she  did  not  feel  just  exactly  like 
going ;  and  my  tender  heart  ached  with  a  knowledge 
of  her  distress.  Miss  Gage  made  a  faint,  false  pre 
tense  of  refusing  to  come  with  us,  too ;  but  Mrs.  Deer- 
ing  urged  her  to  go,  and  put  on  the  new  dress,  which 
had  just  come  home,  so  that  Mrs.  March  could  see  it. 
The  girl  came  back  looking  radiant,  divine,  and— 
"  Will  it  do  ?  "  she  palpitated  under  my  wife's  criti 
cal  glance. 

"  Do  ?  It  will  outdo  !  I  never  saw  anything  like 
it !  "  The  connoisseur  patted  it  a  little  this  way  and 
a  little  that.  "It  is  a  dream!  Did  the  hat  come, 
too?" 

It  appeared  that  the  hat  had  come,  too.  Miss  Gage 
rematerialized  with  it  on,  after  a  moment's  evanescence, 
and  looked  at  my  wife  with  the  expression  of  being 
something  impersonal  with  a  hat  on. 

"  Simply,  there  is  nothing  to  say  !  "  cried  Mrs. 
March.  The  girl  put  up  her  hands  to  it.  "Good 
gracious !  You  mustn't  take  it  off  !  Your  costume  is 
perfect  for  the  concert." 

"  Is  it,  really  ? "  asked  the  girl,  joyfully ;  and  she 
seemed  to  find  this  the  first  fitting  moment  to  say,  for 
sole  recognition  of  our  self-sacrifice,  "  I'm  much  obliged 
to  you,  Mr.  March,  for  getting  me  that  room." 


90  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

I  begged  her  not  to  speak  of  it,  and  turned  an  iron 
ical  eye  upon  my  wife ;  but  she  was  lost  in  admiration 
of  the  hat. 

"  Yes,"  she  sighed ;  "  it's  much  better  than  the  one 
I  wanted  you  to  get  at  first."  And  she  afterward  ex 
plained  that  the  girl  seemed  to  have  a  perfect  instinct 
for  what  went  with  her  style. 

Kendricks  kept  himself  discreetly  in  the  background, 
and,  with  his  unfailing  right  feeling,  was  talking  to 
Mrs.  Deering,  in  spite  of  her  not  paying  much  atten 
tion  to  him.  I  must  own  that  I  too  was  absorbed  in 
the  spectacle  of  Miss  Gage. 

She  went  off  with  us,  and  did  not  say  another  word 
to  Mrs.  Deering  about  helping  her  pack.  Perhaps 
this  was  best,  though  it  seemed  heartless ;  it  may  not 
have  been  so  heartless  as  it  seemed.  I  dare  say  it 
would  have  been  more  suffering  to  the  woman  if  the 
girl  had  missed  this  chance. 


X. 

WE  had  undertaken  rather  a  queer  affair,  but  it  was 
not  so  queer  after  all,  when  Miss  Gage  was  fairly  set 
tled  with  us.  There  were  other  young  girls  in  that 
pleasant  house  who  had  only  one  another's  protection 
and  the  general  safety  of  the  social  atmosphere.  We 
could  not  conceal  from  ourselves,  of  course,  that  we 
had  done  a  rather  romantic  thing,  and, (in  the  light  of 
Europe,  which  we  had  more  or  less  upon  our  actions,  J 
rather  an  absurd  thing;  but  it  was  a  comfort  to  find 
that  Miss  Gage  thought  it  neither  romantic  nor  absurd. 
She  took  the  affair  with  an  apparent  ignorance  of  any 
thing  unusual  in  it — with  so  much  ignorance,  indeed, 
that  Mrs.  March  had  her  occasional  question  whether 
she  was  duly  impressed  with  what  was  being  done  for 
her.  Whether  this  was  so  or  not,  it  is  certain  that 
she  was  as  docile  and  as  biddable  as  need  be.  She  did 
not  always  ask  what  she  should  do ;  that  would  not 
have  been  in  the  tradition  of  village  independence; 


92  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY: 

but  she  always  did  what  she  was  told,  and  did  not  vary 
from  her  instructions  a  hair's-breadth.  I  do  not  sup 
pose  she  always  knew  why  she  might  do  this  and  might 
not  do  that ;  and  I  do  not  suppose  that  young  girls 
often  understand  the  reasons  of  the  proprieties.  They 
are  told  that  they  must,  and  that  they  must  not,  and 
this  in  an  astonishing  degree  suffices  them  if  they  are 
nice  girls. 

Of  course  there  was  pretty  constant  question  of 
Kendricks  in  the  management  of  Miss  Gage's  amuse 
ment,  for  that  was  really  what  our  enterprise  resolved 
itself  into.  He  showed  from  the  first  the  sweetest 
disposition  to  forward  all  our  plans  in  regard  to  her, 
and,  in  fact,  he  even  anticipated  our  wishes.  I  do  not 
mean  to  give  the  notion  that  he  behaved  from  an  in 
terested  motive  in  going  to  the  station  the  morning 
Mrs.  Deering  left,  and  getting  her  ticket  for  her,  and 
checking  her  baggage,  and  posting  her  in  the  changes 
she  would  have  to  make.  This  was  something  I  ought 
to  have  thought  of  myself,  but  I  did  not  think  of  it, 
and  I  am  willing  that  he  should  have  all  the  credit.  I 
know  that  he  did  it  out  of  the  lovely  generosity  of 
nature  which  always  took  me  in  him.  Miss  Gage  was 
there  with  her,  and  she  remained  to  be  consoled  after 
Mrs.  Deering  departed.  They  came  straight  to  us 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  93 

from  the  train,  and  then,  when  he  had  consigned  Miss 
Gage  to  Mrs.  March's  care,  he  offered  to  go  and  see 
that  her  things  were  transferred  from  her  hotel  to 
ours ;  they  were  all  ready,  she  said,  and  the  bill  was 
paid. 

He  did  not  come  back  that  day,  and,  in  fact,  he 
delicately  waited  for  some  sign  from  us  that  his  help 
was  wanted.  But  when  he  did  come  he  had  formu 
lated  Saratoga  very  completely,  and  had  a  better 
conception  of  doing  it  than  I  had,  after  my  repeated 
sojourns. 

We  went  very  early  in  our  explorations  to  the 
House  of  Pansa,  which  you  find  in  very  much  better 
repair  at  Saratoga  than  you  do  at  Pompeii,  and  we 
contrived  to  pass  a  whole  afternoon  there.  My  wife 
and  I  had  been  there  before  more  than  once ;  but  it 
always  pleasantly  recalled  our  wander-years,  when  we 
first  met  in  Europe,  and  we  suffered  round  after  those 
young  things  with  a  patience  which  I  hope  wi.U  not  be 
forgotten  at  the  day  of  judgment.  When  we  came  to 
a  seat  we  sat  down,  and  let  them  go  off  by  themselves ; 
but  my  recollection  is  that  there  is  not  much  furniture 
in  the  House  of  Pansa  that  you  can  sit  down  on,  and 
for  the  most  part  we  all  kept  together. 

Kendricks  and  I  thought  alike  about  the  Pompeian 


94:  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

house  as  a  model  of  something  that  might  be  done  in 
the  way  of  a  seaside  cottage  in  our  own  country,  and 
we  talked  up  a  little  paper  that  might  be  done  for 
"  Every  Other  Week,"  with  pretty  architectural  draw 
ings,  giving  an  account  of  our  imaginary  realization  of 
the  notion. 

"  Have  somebody,"  he  said,  "  visit  people  who  had 
been  boring  him  to  come  down,  or  up,  or  out,  and  see 
them,  and  find  them  in  a  Pompeian  house,  with  the  sea 
in  front  and  a  blue-green  grove  of  low  pines  behind. 
Might  have  a  thread  of  story,  but  mostly  talk  about 
how  they  came  to  do  it,  and  how  delightfully  livable 
they  found  it.  You  could  work  it  up  with  some 
architect,  who  would  help  you  to  '  keep  off  the  grass ' 
in  the  way  of  technical  blunders.  With  all  this  tend 
ency  to  the  classic  in  public  architecture,  I  don't  see 
why  the  Pompeian  villa  shouldn't  be  the  next  word 
for  summer  cottages." 

"  Well,  we'll  see  what  Fulkerson  says.  He  may  see 
an  ad.  in  it.  Would  you  like  to  do  it  ? " 

"  Why  not  do  it  yourself  ?  Nobody  else  could  do 
it  so  well." 

"  Thanks  for  the  taffy ;  but  the  idea  was  yours." 

"  I'll  do  it,"  said  Kendricks  after  a  moment,  "  if 
you  won't." 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL. 

"We'll  see." 

Miss  Gage  stared,  and  Mrs.  March  said: 

"  I  didn't  suppose  the  House  of  Pansa  would  lead 
to  shop  with  you  two." 

"  You  never  can  tell  which  way  copy  lies,"  I  re 
turned  ;  and  I  asked  the  girl,  "  What  should  you  think, 
Miss  Gage,  of  a  little  paper  with  a  thread  of  story,  but 
mostly  talk,  on  a  supposititious  Pompeian  cottage?" 

"  I  don't  believe  I  understand,"  said  she,  far  too 
remote  from  our  literary  interests,  as  I  saw,  to  be 
ashamed  of  her  ignorance. 

"  There !  "  I  said  to  Kendricks.  "  Do  you  think 
the  general  public  would  ? " 

"  Miss  Gage  isn't  the  general  public,"  said  my  wife, 
who  had  followed  the  course  of  my  thought ;  her  tone 
implied  that  Miss  Gage  was  wiser  and  better. 

"  Would  you  allow  yourself  to  be  drawn,"  I  asked, 
"  dreamily  issuing  from  an  aisle  of  the  pine  grove  as 
the  tutelary  goddess  of  a  Pompeian  cottage  ? " 

The  girl  cast  a  bewildered  glance  at  my  wife,  who 
said,  "You  needn't  pay  any  attention  to  him,  Miss 
Gage.  He  has  an  idea  that  he  is  making  a  joke." 

We  felt  that  we  had  done  enough  for  one  afternoon, 
when  we  had  done  the  House  of  Pansa,  and  I  pro 
posed  that  we  should  go  and  sit  down  in  Congress 


96  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

Park  and  listen  to  the  Troy  band.     I  was  not  without 
the  hope  that  it  would  play  "  Washington  Post." 

My  wife  contrived  that  we  should  fall  in  behind  the 
young  people  as  we  went,  and  she  asked,  "  What  do 
you  suppose  she  made  of  it  all  ? " 

"  Probably  she  thought  it  was  the  house  of  Sancho 
Panza." 

"  No ;  she  hasn't  read  enough  to  be  so  ignorant  even 
as  that.  It's  astonishing  how  much  she  doesn't  know. 
What  can  her  home  life  have  been  like  ? " 

"  Philistine  to  the  last  degree.  We  people  who  are 
near  to  literature  have  no  conception  how  far  from  it 
most  people  are.  The  immense  majority  of  '  homes,' 
as  the  newspapers  call  them,  have  no  books  in  them 
except  the  Bible  and  a  semi-religious  volume  or  two — 
things  you  never  see  out  of  such  '  homes ' — and  the 
State  business  directory.  I  was  astonished  when  it 
came  out  that  she  knew  about  *  Every  Other  Week.' 
It  must  have  been  by  accident.  The  sordidness  of 
her  home  life  must  be  something  unimaginable.  The 
daughter  of  a  village  capitalist,  who's  put  together  his 
money  dollar  by  dollar,  as  they  do  in  such  places,  from 
the  necessities  and  follies  of  his  neighbors,  and  has 
half  the  farmers  of  the  region  by  the  throat  through 
his  mortgages — I  don't  think  that  she's  *  one  to  be 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  97 

desired '  any  more  than  '  the  daughter  of  a  hundred 

earls,'  if  so  much." 

"  She  doesn't  seem  sordid  herself." 

"  Oh,  the  taint  doesn't  show  itself  at  once : 

" '  If  nature  put  not  forth  her  power 
About  the  opening  of  the  flower, 
Who  is  it  that  would  live  an  hour  ?' 

and  she  is  a  flower,  beautiful,  exquisite." 

"  Yes,  and  she  had  a  mother  as  well  as  this  father 
of  hers.  Why  shouldn't  she  be  like  her  mother  ? " 

I  laughed.  "  That  is  true !  I  wonder  why  we  al 
ways  leave  the  mother  out  of  the  count  when  we  sum 
up  the  hereditary  tendencies  ?  I  suppose  the  mother 
is  as  much  a  parent  as  the  father." 

"Quite.  And  there  is  no  reason  why  this  girl 
shouldn't  have  her  mother's  nature." 

"  We  don't  actually  know  anything  against  her  fa 
ther's  nature  yet,"  I  suggested ;  "  but  if  her  mother 
lived  a  starved  and  stunted  life  with  him,  it  may 
account  for  that  effect  of  disappointed  greed  which  I 
fancied  in  her  when  I  first  saw  her." 

"  I  don't  call  it  greed  in  a  young  girl  to  want  to  see 
something  of  the  world." 

"What  do  you  call  it?" 

Kendricks  and  the  girl  were  stopping  at  the  gate  of 
G 


98  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  ! 

the  pavilion,  and  looking  round  at  us.  "  Ah,  he's  got 
enough  for  one  day  !  He's  going  to  leave  her  to  us 
now." 

When  we  came  up  he  said,  "  I'm  going  to  run  off  a 
moment ;  I'm  going  up  to  the  book-store  there,"  and 
he  pointed  toward  one  that  had  spread  across  the  side 
walk  just  below  the  Congress  Hall  veranda,  with  banks 
and  shelves  of  novels,  and  a  cry  of  bargains  in  them 
on  signs  sticking  up  from  their  rows.  "  I  want  to  see 
if  they  have  the  '  Last  Days  of  Pompeii.' " 

"  We  will  find  the  ladies  inside  the  park,"  I  said. 
"  I  will  go  with  you — " 

"  Mr.  March  wants  to  see  if  they  have  the  last  num 
ber  of  '  Every  Other  Week,' "  my  wife  mocked  after 
us.  This  was,  indeed,  commonly  a  foible  of  mine.  I 
had  newly  become  one  of  the  owners  of  the  periodical 
as  well  as  the  editor,  and  I  was  all  the  time  looking 
out  for  it  at  the  news-stands  and  book-stores,  and 
judging  their  enterprise  by  its  presence  or  absence. 
But  this  time  I  had  another  motive,  though  I  did  not 
allege  it. 

"  I  suppose  it's  for  Miss  Gage  ?  "  I  ventured  to  say, 
by  way  of  prefacing  what  I  wished  to  say.  "  Ken- 
dricks,  I'm  afraid  we're  abusing  your  good  nature.  I 
know  you're  up  here  to  look  about,  and  you're  letting 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  99 

us  use  all  your  time.  You  mustn't  do  it.  Women 
have  no  conscience  about  these  things,  and  you  can't 
expect  a  woman  who  has  a  young  lady  on  her  hands 
to  spare  you.  I  give  you  the  hint.  Don't  count  upon 
Mrs.  March  in  this  matter." 

"  Oh,  I  think  you  are  very  good  to  allow  me  to  both 
er  round,"  said  the  young  fellow,  with  that  indefatiga 
ble  politeness  of  his.  He  added  vaguely,  "  It's  very 
interesting." 

"  Seeing  it  through  such  a  fresh  mind  ? "  I  suggest 
ed.  "Well,  I'll  own  that  I  don't  think  you  could 
have  found  a  much  fresher  one.  Has  she  read  the 
*  Last  Days  of  Pompeii  ? '  " 

"  She  thought  she  had  at  first,  but  it  was  the  *  Fall 
of  Granada.' " 

"  How  delightful !  Don't  you  wish  we  could  read 
books  with  that  utterly  unliterary  sense  of  them  ? " 

"  Don't  you  think  women  generally  do  ? "  he  asked 
evasively. 

"  I  dare  say  they  do  at  De  Witt  Point." 

He  did  not  answer ;  I  saw  that  he  was  not  willing 
to  talk  the  young  lady  over,  and  I  could  not  help 
praising  his  taste  to  myself  at  the  cost  of  my  own. 
His  delicacy  forbade  him  the  indulgence  which  my 
own  protested  against  in  vain.  He  showed  his  taste 


100  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  ; 

again  in  buying  a  cheap  copy  of  the  book,  which  he 
meant  to  give  her,  and  of  course  he  had  to  be  all  the 
more  attentive  to  her  because  of  my  deprecating  his 
self-devotion. 


XL 

IN  the  intimacy  that  grew  up  between  my  wife  and 
Miss  Gage  I  found  myself  less  and  less  included.  It 
seemed  to  me  at  times  that  I  might  have  gone  away 
from  Saratoga  and  not  been  seriously  missed  by  any 
one,  but  perhaps  this  was  not  taking  sufficient  account 
of  my  value  as  a  spectator,  by  whom  Mrs.  March  could 
verify  her  own  impressions. 

The  girl  had  never  known  a  mother's  care,  and  it 
was  affecting  to  see  how  willing  she  was  to  be  mother 
ed  by  the  chance  kindness  of  a  stranger.  She  probably 
felt  more  and  more  her  ignorance  of  the  world  as  it 
unfolded  itself  to  her  in  terms  so  altogether  strange  to 
the  life  of  De  Witt  Point.  I  was  not  sure  that  she 
would  have  been  so  grateful  for  the  efforts  made  for 
her  enjoyment  if  they  had  failed,  but  as  the  case  stood 
she  was  certainly  grateful ;  my  wife  said  that,  and  I 
saw  it.  She  seemed  to  have  written  home  about  us 
to  her  father,  for  she  read  my  wife  part  of  a  letter  from 
him  conveying  his  "  respects,"  and  asking  her  to  thank 


102  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

us  for  him.  She  came  to  me  with  the  check  it  en 
closed,  and  asked  me  to  get  it  cashed  for  her ;  it  was 
for  a  handsome  amount.  But  she  continued  to  go 
about  at  our  cost,  quite  unconsciously,  till  one  day  she 
happened  to  witness  a  contest  of  civility  between  Ken- 
dricks  and  myself  as  to  which  should  pay  the  carriage 
we  were  dismissing.  That  night  she  came  to  Mrs. 
March,  and,  with  many  blushes,  asked  to  be  allowed 
to  pay  for  the  past  and  future  her  full  share  of  the 
expense  of  our  joint  pleasures.  She  said  that  she  had 
never  thought  of  it  before,  and  she  felt  so  much 
ashamed.  She  could  not  be  consoled  till  she  was 
promised  that  she  should  be  indulged  for  the  future, 
and  that  I  should  be  obliged  to  average  the  outlay  al 
ready  made  and  let  her  pay  a  fourth.  When  she  had 
gained  her  point,  Mrs.  March  said  that  she  seemed  a 
little  scared,  and  said,  "  I  haven't  offended  you,  Mrs. 
March,  have  I  ?  Because  if  it  isn't  right  for  me  to 
pay-" 

"  It's  quite  right,  my  dear,"  said  my  wife,  "  and 
it's  very  nice  of  you  to  think  of  it." 

"  You  know,"  the  girl  explained,  "  I've  never  been 
out  a  great  deal  at  home  even ;  and  it's  always  the  cus 
tom  there  for  the  gentlemen  to  pay  for  a  ride — or 
dance — or  anything;  but  this  is  different." 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  103 

Mrs.  March  said  "Yes,"  and,  in  the  interest  of  civ 
ilization,  she  did  a  little  missionary  work.  She  told 
her  that  in  Boston  the  young  ladies  paid  for  their  tick 
ets  to  the  Harvard  assemblies,  and  preferred  to  do  it,' 
because  it  left  them  without  even  a  tacit  obligation. 

Miss  Gage  said  she  had  never  heard  of  such  a  thing 
before,  but  she  could  see  how  much  better  it  was. 

I  do  not  think  she  got  on  with  the  "  Last  Days  of 
Pompeii "  very  rapidly ;  its  immediate  interest  was 
superseded  by  other  things.  But  she  always  had  the 
book  about  with  her,  and  I  fancied  that  she  tried  to 
read  it  in  those  moments  of  relaxation  from  our  pleas 
uring  when  she  might  better  have  been  day-dreaming, 
though  I  dare  say  she  did  enough  of  that  too. 

What  amused  me  in  the  affair  was  the  celerity  with 
which  it  took  itself  out  of  our  hands.  In  an  incredibly 
short  time  we  had  no  longer  the  trouble  of  thinking 
what  we  should  do  for  Miss  Gage ;  that  was  provided 
for  by  the  forethought  of  Kendricks,  and  our  concern 
was  how  each  could  make  the  other  go  with  the  younj* 
people  on  their  excursions  and  expeditions.  We  had 
seen  and  done  all  the  things  that  they  were  doing,  and 
it  presently  bored  us  to  chaperon  them.  After  a  good 
deal  of  talking  we  arrived  at  a  rough  division  of  duty, 
and  I  went  with  them  walking  and  eating  and  drink- 


104  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

ing,  and  for  anything  involving  late  hours,  and  Mrs. 
March  presided  at  such  things  as  carriage  exercise, 
concerts  and  shopping. 

There  are  not  many  public  entertainments  at  Sara 
toga,  except  such  as  the  hotels  supply ;  but  a  series  of 
Salvation  Army  meetings  did  duty  as  amusements,  and 
there  was  one  theatrical  performance — a  performance 
of  "  East  Lynne  "  entirely  by  people  of  color.  The 
sentiments  and  incidents  of  the  heart-breaking  melo 
drama,  as  the  colored  mind  interpreted  them,  were  of 
very  curious  effect.  It  was  as  if  the  version  were 
dyed  with  the  same  pigment  that  darkened  the  players' 
skins :  it  all  came  out  negro.  Yet  they  had  tried  to 
make  it  white ;  I  could  perceive  how  they  aimed  not 
at  the  imitation  of  our  nature,  but  at  the  imitation  of 
our  convention  ;  it  was  like  the  play  of  children  in  that. 
I  should  have  said  that  nothing  could  be  more  false 
than  the  motives  and  emotions  of  the  drama  as  the 
author  imagined  them,  but  I  had  to  own  that  their 
rendition  by  these  sincere  souls  was  yet  more  artificial. 
There  was  nothing  traditional,  nothing  archaic,  nothing 
autochthonic  in  their  poor  art.  If  the  scene  could  at 
any  moment  have  resolved  itself  into  a  walk-round, 
with  an  interspersion  of  spirituals,  it  would  have  had 
the  charm  of  these  ;  it  would  have  consoled  and  edified  ; 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  105 

but  as  it  was  I  have  seldom  been  so  bored.  I  began 
to  make  some  sad  reflections,  as  that  our  American 
society,  in  its  endeavor  for  the  effect  of  European  so 
ciety,  was  of  no  truer  ideal  than  these  colored  comedi 
ans,  and  I  accused  myself  of  a  final  absurdity  in  having 
come  there  with  these  young  people,  who,  according 
to  our  good  native  usage,  could  have  come  perfectly 
well  without  me.  At  the  end  of  the  first  act  I  broke 
into  their  talk  with  my  conclusion  that  we  must  not 
count  the  histrionic  talent  among  the  gifts  of  the 
African  race  just  yet.  We  could  concede  them  music, 
I  supposed,  and  there  seemed  to  be  hope  for  them, 
from  what  they  had  some  of  them  done,  in  the  region 
of  the  plastic  arts ;  but  apparently  the  stage  was  not 
for  them,  and  this  was  all  the  stranger  because  they 
were  so  imitative.  Perhaps,  I  said,  it  was  an  excess 
of  self-consciousness  which  prevented  their  giving 
themselves  wholly  to  the  art,  and  I  began  to  speak  of 
the  subjective  and  the  objective,  of  the  real  and  the 
ideal ;  and  whether  it  was  that  I  became  unintelligible 
as  I  became  metaphysical,  I  found  Kendricks  obviously 
not  following  me  in  the  incoherent  replies  he  gave.  Miss 
Gage  had  honestly  made  no  attempt  to  follow  me.  He 
asked,  Why,  didn't  I  think  it  was  pretty  well  done  ? 
They  had  enjoyed  it  very  much,  he  said.  I  could  only 


106  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY! 

stare  in  answer,  and  wonder  what  had  become  of  the 
man's  tastes  or  his  principles ;  he  was  either  humbug 
ging  himself  or  he  was  humbugging  me.  After  that 
I  left  them  alone,  and  suffered  through  the  rest  of  the 
play  with  what  relief  I  could  get  from  laughing  when 
the  pathetic  emotions  of  the  drama  became  too  poign 
ant.  I  decided  that  Kendricks  was  absorbed  in  the 
study  of  his  companion's  mind,  which  must  be  open 
to  his  contemporaneous  eye  as  it  could  never  have 
been  to  my  old-sighted  glasses,  and  I  envied  him  the 
knowledge  he  was  gaining  of  that  type  of  American 
girl.  It  suddenly  came  to  me  that  he  must  be  finding 
his  account  in  this,  and  I  felt  a  little  less  regret  for 
the  waste  of  civilities,  of  attentions,  which  sometimes 
seemed  to  me  beyond  her  appreciation. 

I,  for  my  part,  gave  myself  to  the  study  of  the 
types  about  me,  and  I  dwelt  long  and  luxuriously  upon 
the  vision  of  a  florid  and  massive  matron  in  diapha 
nous  evening  dress,  whom  I  imagined  to  be  revisiting 
the  glimpses  of  her  girlhood  in  the  ancient  watering- 
place,  and  to  be  getting  all  the  gayety  she  could  out 
of  it.  These  are  the  figures  one  mostly  sees  at  Sara 
toga;  there  is  very  little  youth  of  the  present  day 
there,  but  the  youth  of  the  past  abounds,  with  the  be 
lated  yellow  hair  and  the  purple  mustaches,  which 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  107 

gave  a  notion  of  greater  wickedness  in  a  former  gen 
eration. 

I  made  my  observation  that  the  dress,  even  in  ex 
treme  cases  of  elderly  prime,  was  very  good — in  the 
case  of  the  women,  I  mean ;  the  men  there,  as  every 
where  with  us,  were  mostly  slovens;  and  I  was  glad 
to  find  that  the  good  taste  and  the  correct  fashion 
were  without  a  color-line ;  there  were  some  mulatto 
ladies  present  as  stylish  as  their  white  sisters,  or  step 
sisters. 

The  most  amiable  of  the  human  race  is  in  great  force 
at  Saratoga,  where  the  vast  hotel  service  is  wholly  in  its 
hands,  and  it  had  honored  the  effort  of  the  comedians 
that  night  with  a  full  house  of  their  own  complexion. 
We  who  were  not  of  it  showed  strangely  enough  in 
the  dark  mass,  who  let  us  lead  the  applause,  however, 
as  if  doubtful  themselves  where  it  ought  to  come  in, 
and  whom  I  found  willing  even  to  share  some  misplaced 
laughter  of  mine.  They  formed  two  thirds  of  the 
audience  on  the  floor,  and  they  were  a  cloud  in  the 
gallery,  scarcely  broken  by  a  gleam  of  white. 

I  entertained  myself  with  them  a  good  deal,  and  I 
thought  how  much  more  delightful  they  were  in  their 
own  kindly  character  than  in  their  assumption  of  white 
character,  and  I  tried  to  define  my  suffering  from  the 


108  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

performance  as  an  effect  from  my  tormented  sympa 
thies  rather  than  from  my  offended  tastes.  When  the 
long  stress  was  over,  and  we  rose  and  stood  to  let  the 
crowd  get  out,  I  asked  Miss  Gage  if  she  did  not  think 
this  must  be  the  case.  I  do  not  suppose  she  was  really 
much  more  experienced  in  the  theatre  than  the  people 
on  the  stage,  some  of  whom  I  doubted  to  have  ever 
seen  a  play  till  they  took  part  in  "  East  Lynne."  But 
I  thought  I  would  ask  her  that  in  order  to  hear  what 
she  would  say ;  and  she  said  very  simply  that  she  had 
seen  so  few  plays  she  did  not  know  what  to  think  of 
it,  and  I  could  see  that  she  was  abashed  by  the  fact. 
Kendricks  must  have  seen  it  too,  for  he  began  at  once 
to  save  her  from  herself,  with  all  his  subtle  generosity, 
and  to  turn  her  shame  to  praise.  My  heart,  which 
remained  sufficiently  cold  to  her,  warmed  more  than 
ever  to  him,  and  I  should  have  liked  to  tell  her  that 
here  was  the  finest  and  rarest  human  porcelain  using 
itself  like  common  clay  in  her  behalf,  and  to  demand 
whether  she  thought  she  was  worth  it. 

I  did  not  think  she  was,  and  I  had  a  lurid  moment 
when  I  was  tempted  to  push  on  and  make  her  show 
herself  somehow  at  her  worst.  We  had  undertaken  a 
preposterous  thing  in  befriending  her  as  we  had  done, 
and  our  course  in  bringing  Kendricks  in  was  wholly 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  109 

unjustifiable.  How  could  I  lead  her  on  to  some  be 
trayal  of  her  essential  Philistinism,  and  make  her  so 
impossible  in  his  eyes  that  even  he,  with  all  his  sweet 
ness  and  goodness,  must  take  the  first  train  from  Sar 
atoga  in  the  morning  ? 

We  had  of  course  joined  the  crowd  in  pushing  for 
ward  ;  people  always  do,  though  they  promise  them 
selves  to  wait  till  the  last  one  is  out.  I  got  caught  in 
a  dark  eddy  on  the  first  stair-landing ;  but  I  could  see 
them  farther  down,  and  I  knew  they  would  wait  for 
me  outside  the  door. 

When  I  reached  it  at  last  they  were  nowhere  to  be 
seen ;  I  looked  up  this  street  and  down  that,  but  they 
were  not  in  sight. 


XII. 

I  DID  not  afflict  myself  very  much,  nor  pretend  to 
do  so.  They  knew  the  way  home,  and  after  I  had 
blundered  about  in  search  of  them  through  the  lamp- 
shot  darkness,  I  settled  myself  to  walk  back  at  my 
leisure,  comfortably  sure  that  I  should  find  them  on 
the  veranda  waiting  for  me  when  I  reached  the  hotel. 
It  was  quite  a  thick  night,  and  I  almost  ran  into  a 
couple  at  a  corner  of  our  quieter  street  when  I  had  got 
to  it  out  of  Broadway.  They  seemed  to  be  standing 
and  looking  about,  and  when  the  man  said,  "  He  must 
have  thought  we  took  the  first  turn,''  and  the  woman, 
"  Yes,  that  must  have  been  the  way,"  I  recognized  my 
estrays. 

I  thought  I  would  not  discover  myself  to  them,  but 
follow  on,  and  surprise  them  by  arriving  at  our  steps 
at  the  same  moment  they  did,  and  I  prepared  myself 
to  hurry  after  them.  But  they  seemed  in  no  hurry, 
and  I  had  even  some  difficulty  in  accommodating  my 
pace  to  the  slowness  of  theirs. 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  Ill 

"  Won't  you  take  niy  arm,  Miss  Gage  ? "  he  asked 
as  they  moved  on. 

"  It's  so  very  dark,"  she  answered,  and  I  knew  she 
had  taken  it.  "I  can  hardly  see  a  step,  and  poor  Mr. 
March,  with  his  glasses — I  don't  know  what  he'll  do." 

"  Oh,  he  only  uses  them  to  read  with ;  he  can  see 
as  well  as  we  can  in  the  dark." 

"  He's  very  young  in  his  feelings,"  said  the  girl ; 
"  he  puts  me  in  mind  of  my  own  father." 

"  He's  very  young  in  his  thoughts,"  said  Kendricks ; 
"  and  that's  much  more  to  the  purpose  for  a  magazine 
editor.  There  are  very  few  men  of  his  age  who  keep 
in  touch  with  the  times  as  he  does." 

"  Still,  Mrs.  March  seems  a  good  deal  younger, 
don't  you  think  i  I  wonder  how  soon  they  begin  to 
feel  old  ? " 

"  Oh,  not  till  along  in  the  forties,  I  should  say.  It's 
a  good  deal  in  temperament.  I  don't  suppose  that 
either  of  them  realizes  yet  that  they're  old,  and  they 
must  be  nearly  fifty." 

**  How  strange  it  must  be,"  said  the  girl,  "  to  be 
fifty  years  old  !  Twenty  seems  old  enough,  goodness 
knows." 

.-*  How  should  you  like  to  be  a  dotard  of  twenty- 
seven  ? M  Kendricks  asked,  and  she  laughed  at  his  joke. 


112  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

"  I  don't  suppose  I  should  mind  it  so  much  if  I 
were  a  man." 

I  had  promised  myself  that  if  the  talk  became  at  all 
confidential  I  would  drop  behind  out  of  ear-shot;  but 
though  it  was  curiously  intimate  for  me  to  be  put  apart 
in  the  minds  of  these  young  people  on  account  of  my 
years  as  not  of  the  same  race  or  fate  as  themselves, 
there  was  nothing  in  what  they  said  that  I  might  not 
innocently  overhear,  as  far  as  they  were  concerned,  and 
I  listened  on. 

But  they  had  apparently  given  me  quite  enough  at 
tention.  After  some  mutual  laughter  at  what  she  said 
last,  they  were  silent  a  moment,  and  then  he  said  so 
berly,  "  There's  something  fine  in  this  isolation  the 
dark  gives  you,  isn't  there  ?  You're  as  remote  in  it 
from  our  own  time  and  place  as  if  you  were  wander 
ing  in  interplanetary  space." 

"  I  suppose  we  art  doing  that  all  the  time — on  the 
earth,"  she  suggested. 

"  Yes ;  but  how  hard  it  is  to  realize  that  we  are  on 
the  earth  now.  Sometimes  I  have  a  sense  of  it,  though, 
when  the  moon  breaks  from  one  flying  cloud  to  anoth 
er.  Then  it  seems  as  if  I  were  a  passenger  on  some 
vast,  shapeless  ship  sailing  through  the  air.  What," 
he  asked,  with  no  relevancy  that  I  could  perceive, 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  113 

"  was  the  strangest  feeling  you  ever  had  ?  "  I  remem 
bered  asking  girls  such  questions  when  I  was  young, 
and  their  not  apparently  thinking  it  at  all  odd. 

"  I  don't  know,"  she  returned  thoughtfully.  "  There 
was  one  time  when  I  was  little,  and  it  had  sleeted,  and 
the  sun  came  out  just  before  it  set,  and  seemed  to  set 
all  the  woods  on  fire.  I  thought  the  world  was  burn 
ing  up." 

"  It  must  have  been  very  weird,"  said  Kendricks ; 
and  I  thought,  "  Oh,  good  heavens  !  Has  he  got  to 
talking  of  weird  things  ? " 

"It's  strange,"  he  added,  "how  we  all  have  that 
belief  when  we  are  children  that  the  world  is  going  to 
burn  up  !  I  don't  suppose  any  child  escapes  it.  Do 
you  remember  that  poem  of  Thompson's — the  '  City 
of  Dreadful  Night '  man  — where  he  describes  the  end 
of  the  world  ? " 

"  No,  I  never  read  it." 

"  Well,  merely,  he  says  when  the  conflagration  be 
gan  the  little  flames  looked  like  crocuses  breaking 
through  the  sod.  If  it  ever  happened  I  fancy  it  would 
be  quite  as  simple  as  that.  But  perhaps  you  don't 
like  gloomy  poetry  ?  " 

"  Yes,  yes,  I  do.  It's  the  only  kind  that  I  care 
about." 

H 


114  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY: 

"  Then  you  hate  funny  poetry  ? " 

"  I  think  it's  disgusting.  Papa  is  always  cutting  it 
out  of  the  papers  and  wanting  to  send  it  to  me,  and 
we  have  the  greatest  times  !  " 

"  I  suppose,"  said  Kendricks,  "  it  expresses  some 
moods,  though." 

"  Oh,  yes ;  it  expresses  some  moods ;  and  sometimes 
it  makes  me  laugh  in  spite  of  myself,  and  ashamed  of 
anything  serious." 

"  That's  always  the  effect  of  a  farce  with  me." 

"But  then  I'm  ashamed  of  being  ashamed  after 
ward,"  said  the  girl.  "  I  suppose  you  go  to  the  thea 
tre  a  great  deal  in  New  York." 

"  It's  a  school  of  life,"  said  Kendricks.  "  I  mean 
the  audience." 

"  I  would  like  to  go  to  the  opera  once.  I  am  going 
to  make  papa  take  me  in  the  winter."  She  laughed 
with  a  gay  sense  of  power,  and  he  said : 

"  You  seem  to  be  great  friends  with  your  father." 

"  Yes,  we're  always  together.  I  always  went  every 
where  with  him ;  this  is  the  first  time  I've  been  away 
without  him.  But  I  thought  I'd  come  with  Mrs. 
Deering  and  see  what  Saratoga  was  like ;  I  had  never 
been  here." 

"  And  is  it  like  what  you  thought  ?  " 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  115 

"  No.  The  first  week  we  didn't  do  anything.  Then 
we  got  acquainted  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  March,  and  I  be 
gan  to  really  see  something.  But  I  supposed  it  was 
all  balls  and  gayety." 

"  We  must  get  up  a  few  if  you're  so  fond  of  them," 
Kendricks  playfully  suggested. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know  as  I  am.  I  never  went  much  at 
home.  Papa  didn't  care  to  have  me." 

"  Ah,  do  you  think  it  was  right  for  him  to  keep  you 
all  to  himself  ?  "  The  girl  did  not  answer,  and  they 
had  both  halted  so  abruptly  that  I  almost  ran  into  them. 
"  I  don't  quite  make  out  where  we  are."  Kendricks 
seemed  to  be  peering  about.  I  plunged  across  th© 
street  lest  he  should  ask  me.  I  heard  him  add,  "  Oh^ 
yes ;  I  know  now,"  and  then  they  pressed  forward. 

We  were  quite  near  our  hotel,  but  I  thought  it  best 
to  walk  round  the  square  and  let  them  arrive  first.  On 
the  way  I  amused  myself  thinking  how  different  the 
girl  had  shown  herself  to  him  from  what  she  had  ever 
shown  herself  to  my  wife  or  me.  She  had  really,  this 
plain-minded  goddess,  a  vein  of  poetic  feeling,  some 
inner  beauty  of  soul  answering  to  the  outer  beauty  of 
body.  She  had  a  romantic  attachment  to  her  father, 
and  this  shed  a  sort  of  light  on  both  of  them,  though 
I  knew  that  it  was  not  always  a  revelation,  of  character. 


XIII. 

WHEN  I  reached  the  hotel  I  found  Miss  Gage  at  the 
door,  and  Kendricks  coming  out  of  the  office  toward 
her. 

"  Oh,  here  he  is  !  "  she  called  to  him  at  sight  of  me. 

"  Where  in  the  world  have  you  been  ? "  he  demand 
ed.  "  I  had  just  found  out  from  the  clerk  that  you 
hadn't  come  in  yet,  and  I  was  going  back  for  you  with 
a  search-light." 

"  Oh,  I  wasn't  so  badly  lost  as  all  that,"  I  returned. 
"  I  missed  you  in  the  crowd  at  the  door,  but  I  knew 
you'd  get  home  somehow,  and  so  I  came  on  without 
you.  But  my  aged  steps  are  not  so  quick  as  yours." 

The  words,  mechanically  uttered,  suggested  some 
thing,  and  I  thought  that  if  they  were  in  for  weirdness 
I  would  give  them  as  much  weirdness  as  they  could 
ask  for.  "  When  you  get  along  toward  fifty  you'll 
find  that  the  foot  you've  still  got  out  of  the  grave 
doesn't  work  so  lively  as  it  used.  Besides,  I  was  in- 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  117 

terested  in  the  night  effect.  It's  so  gloriously  dark; 
and  I  had  a  fine  sense  of  isolation  as  I  came  along,  as 
if  I  were  altogether  out  of  my  epoch  and  my  environ 
ment.  I  felt  as  if  the  earth  was  a  sort  of  Flying 
Dutchman,  and  I  was  the  only  passenger.  It  was 
about  the  weirdest  sensation  I  ever  had.  It  reminded 
me,  I  don't  know  how,  exactly  of  the  feeling  I  had 
when  I  was  young,  and  I  saw  the  sunset  one  evening 
through  the  woods  after  a  sleet-storm." 

They  stared  at  each  other  as  I  went  on,  and  I  could 
see  Kendricks's  fine  eyes  kindle  with  an  imaginative 
appreciation  of  the  literary  quality  of  the  coincidence. 
But  when  I  added,  "  Did  you  ever  read  a  poem  about 
the  end  of  the  world  by  that  '  City  of  Deadful  Night ' 
man  ? "  Miss  Gage  impulsively  caught  me  by  the  coat 
lapel  and  shook  me. 

"  Ah,  it  was  you  all  the  time  !  I  knew  there  was 
somebody  following  us,  and  I  might  have  known  who 
it  was ! " 

We  all  gave  way  in  a  gale  of  laughter,  and  sat  down 
on  the  veranda  and  had  our  joke  out  in  full  recognition 
of  the  fact.  When  Kendricks  rose  to  go  at  last  I  said, 
"  We  won't  say  anything  about  this  little  incident  to 
Mrs.  March,  hey  ? "  And  then  they  laughed  again  as 
if  it  were  the  finest  wit  in  the  world,  and  Miss  Gage 


118  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

bade  me  a  joyful  good  night  at. the  head  of  the  stairs 
as  she  went  off  to  her  room  and  I  to  mine. 

I  found  Mrs.  March  waiting  up  with  a  book ;  and  as 
soon  as  I  shut  myself  in  with  her  she  said,  awfully, 
"  What  were  you  laughing  so  about  ? " 

"  Laughing  ?     Did  you  hear  me  laughing  ? " 

"  The  whole  house  heard  you,  I'm  afraid.  You  cer 
tainly  ought  to  have  known  better,  Basil.  It  was  very 
inconsiderate  of  you."  And  as  I  saw  she  was  going  on 
with  more  of  that  sort  of  thing,  to  divert  her  thoughts 
from  my  crime  I  told  her  the  whole  story.  It  had 
quite  the  effect  I  intended  up  to  a  certain  point.  She 
even  smiled  a  little,  as  much  as  a  woman  could  be  ex 
pected  to  smile  who  was  not  originally  in  the  joke. 

"  And  they  had  got  to  comparing  weird  experi 
ences  ? "  she  asked. 

"  Yes ;  the  staleness  of  the  thing  almost  made  me 
sick.  Do  you  remember  when  we  first  compared  our 
weird  experiences  ?  But  I  suppose  they  will  go  on  do 
ing  it  to  the  end  of  time,  and  it  will  have  as  great  a 
charm  for  the  last  man  and  woman  as  it  had  for  Adam 
and  Eve  when  they  compared  their  weird  experiences." 

"  And  was  that  what  you  were  laughing  at  ? " 

"  We  were  laughing  at  the  wonderful  case  of  tele 
pathy  I  put  up  on  them." 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  119 

Mrs.  March  faced  her  open  book  down  on  the  table 
before  her,  and  looked  at  me  with  profound  solemnity. 
"  Well,  then,  I  can  tell  you,  my  dear,  it  is  no  laughing 
matter.  If  they  have  got  to  the  weird  it  is  very  seri 
ous  ;  and  her  talking  to  him  about  her  family,  and  his 
wanting  to  know  about  her  father,  that's  serious  too 
— far  more  serious  than  either  of  them  can  understand. 
I  don't  like  it,  Basil ;  we  have  got  a  terrible  affair  on 
our  hands." 

"  Terrible  ? " 

"  Yes,  terrible.  As  long  as  he  was  interested  in  her 
simply  from  a  literary  point  of  view,  though  I  didn't 
like  that  either,  I  could  put  up  with  it ;  but  now  that 
he's  got  to  telling  her  about  himself,  and  exchanging 
weird  experiences  with  her,  it's  another  thing  altogeth 
er.  Oh,  I  never  wanted  Kendricks  brought  into  the 
affair  at  all." 

"  Come  now,  Isabel !    Stick  to  the  facts,  please." 

"  No  matter !  It  was  you  that  discovered  the  girl, 
and  then  something  had  to  be  done.  I  was  perfectly 
shocked  when  you  told  me  that  Mr.  Kendricks  was  in 
town,  because  I  saw  at  once  that  he  would  have  to  be 
got  in  for  it ;  and  now  we  have  to  think  what  we  shalJ 
do." 

"  Couldn't  we  think  better  in  the  morning  ? " 


120  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

"  No ;  we  must  think  at  once.  I  shall  not  sleep  to 
night  anyhow.  My  peace  is  gone.  I  shall  have  to 
watch  them  every  instant." 

"  Beginning  at  this  instant.  Why  not  wait  till  you 
can  see  them  ?  " 

"  Oh,  you  can't  joke  it  away,  my  dear.  If  I  find 
they  are  really  interested  in  each  other  I  shall  have  to 
speak.  I  am  responsible." 

"  The  young  lady,"  I  said,  more  to  gain  time  than 
anything  else,  "  seems  quite  capable  of  taking  care  of 
herself." 

"  That  makes  it  all  the  worse.  Do  you  think  I  care 
for  her  only  ?  It's  Kendricks  too  that  I  care  for.  I 
don't  know  that  I  care  for  her  at  all." 

"  Oh,  then  I  think  we  may  fairly  leave  Kendricks  to 
his  own  devices ;  and  I'm  not  alarmed  for  Miss  Gage 
either,  though  I  do  care  for  her  a  great  deal." 

"  I  don't  understand  how  you  can  be  so  heartless 
about  it,  Basil,"  said  Mrs.  March,  plaintively.  "  She 
is  a  young  girl,  and  she  has  never  seen  anything  of 
the  world,  and  of  course  if  he  keeps  on  paying  her  at 
tention  in  this  way  she  can't  help  thinking  that  he  is 
interested  in  her.  Men  never  can  see  such  thing's  as 

o 

women  do.     They  think  that,  until  a  man  has  actually 
asked  a  girl  to  marry  him,  he  hasn't  done  anything  to 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  Ii51 

warrant  her  in  supposing  that  he  is  in  love  with  her, 
or  that  she  has  any  right  to  be  in  love  with  him." 

"  That  is  true ;  we  can't  imagine  that  she  would  be 
so  indelicate." 

"  I  see  that  you're  determined  to  tease,  my  dear," 
said  Mrs.  March,  and  she  took  up  her  book  with  an  air 
of  offense  and  dismissal.  "  If  you  won't  talk  seriously, 
I  hope  you  will  think  seriously,  and  try  to  realize  what 
we've  got  in  for.  Such  a  girl  couldn't  imagine  that 
we  had  simply  got  Mr.  Kendricks  to  go  about  with 
her  from  a  romantic  wish  to  make  her  have  a  good 
time,  and  that  he  was  doing  it  to  oblige  us,  and  wasn't 
at  all  interested  in  her." 

"  It  does  look  a  little  preposterous,  even  to  the  out 
sider,"  I  admitted. 

"  I  am  glad  you  are  beginning  to  see  it  in  that  light, 
my  dear,  and  if  you  can  think  of  anything  to  do  by 
morning  I  shall  be  humbly  thankful.  /  don't  expect 
to." 

"  Perhaps  I  shall  dream  of  something,"  I  said  more 
lightly  than  I  felt.  "  How  would  it  do  for  you  to 
have  a  little  talk  with  her — a  little  motherly  talk — and 
hint  round,  and  warn  her  not  to  let  her  feelings  run 
away  with  her  in  Kendricks's  direction  ?  "  Mrs.  March 
faced  her  book  down  in  her  lap,  and  listened  as  if 


122  AN    OrEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

there  might  be  some  reason  in  the  nonsense  I  was 
talking.  "  You  might  say  that  he  was  a  society  man, 
and  was  in  great  request,  and  then  intimate  that  there 
was  a  prior  attachment,  or  that  he  was  the  kind  of  man 
who  would  never  marry,  but  was  really  cold-hearted 
with  all  his  sweetness,  and  merely  had  a  passion  for 
studying  character." 

"Do  you  think  that  would  do,  Basil?"  she  asked. 

"  Well,  I  thought  perhaps  you  might  think  so." 

"  I'm  afraid  it  wouldn't,"  she  sighed.  "  All  that 
we  can  do  now  is  to  watch  them,  and  act  promptly,  if 
we  see  that  they  are  really  in  love,  either  of  them." 

"  I  don't  believe,"  I  said,  "  that  I  should  know  that 
they  were  in  love  even  if  I  saw  it.  I  have  forgotten 
the  outward  signs,  if  I  ever  knew  them.  Should  he 
give  her  flowers  ?  He's  done  it  from  the  start ;  he's 
brought  her  boxes  of  Huyler  candy,  and  lent  her 
books ;  but  I  dare  say  he's  been  merely  complying  with 
our  wishes  in  doing  it.  I  doubt  if  lovers  sigh  nowa 
days.  I  didn't  sigh  myself,  even  in  my  time ;  and  I 
don't  believe  any  passion  could  make  Kendricks  neg 
lect  his  dress.  He  keeps  his  eyes  on  her  all  the  time, 
but  that  may  be  merely  an  effort  to  divine  her  charac 
ter.  I  don't  believe  I  should  know,  indeed  I  don't." 

"  I  shall,"  said  Mrs.  March. 


XIV. 

WE  were  to  go  the  next  day  to  the  races,  and  I 
woke  with  more  anxiety  about  the  weather  than  about 
the  lovers,  or  potential  lovers.  But  after  realizing 
that  the  day  was  beautiful,  on  that  large  scale  of  love 
liness  which  seems  characteristic  of  the  summer  days 
at  Saratoga,  where  they  have  them  almost  the  size  of 
the  summer  days  I  knew  when  I  was  a  boy,  I  was  sen 
sible  of  a  secondary  worry  in  my  mind,  which  pres 
ently  related  itself  to  Kendricks  and  Miss  Gage.  It 
was  a  haze  of  trouble  merely,  however,  such  as  burns 
off,  like  a  morning  fog,  when  the  sun  gets  higher,  and 
it  was  chiefly  on  my  wife's  account. 

I  suppose  that  the  great  difference  between  her  con 
science  and  one  originating  outside  of  New  England 
(if  any  conscience  can  originate  outside  of  New  Eng 
land)  is  that  it  cannot  leave  the  moral  government  of 
the  universe  in  the  hands  of  divine  Providence.  I 
was  willing  to  leave  so  many  things  which  I  could  not 
control  to  the  deity,  who  probably  could,  that  she 
accused  me  of  fatalism,  and  I  was  held  to  be  little 


124  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

better  than  one  of  the  wicked  because  I  would  not 
forecast  the  effects  of  what  I  did  in  the  lives  of  others. 
I  insisted  that  others  were  also  probably  in  the  hands 
of  the  "  somma  sapienza  e  il  primo  amore,"  and  that 
I  was  so  little  aware  of  the  influence  of  other  lives 
upon  my  own,  even  where  there  had  been  a  direct  and 
strenuous  effort  to  affect  me,  that  I  could  not  readily 
believe1  others  had  swerved  from  the  line  of  their  des 
tiny  because  of  me.  Especially  I  protested  that  I 
could  not  hold  myself  guilty  of  misfortunes  I  had  not 
intended,  even  though  my  faulty  conduct  had  caused 
them.  As  to  this  business  of  Kendricks  and  Miss 
Gage,  I  denied  in  the  dispute  I  now  began  tacitly  to 
hold  with  Mrs.  March's  conscience  that  my  conduct 
had  been  faulty.  I  said  that  there  was  no  earthly 
harm  in  my  having  been  interested  by  the  girl's  for- 
lornness  when  I  first  saw  her ;  that  I  did  not  do  wrong 
to  interest  Mrs.  March  in  her ;  that  she  did  not  sin  in 
going  shopping  with  Miss  Gage  and  Mrs.  Deering ; 
that  we  had  not  sinned,  either  of  us,  in  rejoicing  that 
Kendricks  had  come  to  Saratoga,  or  in  letting  Mrs. 
Deering  go  home  to  her  sick  husband  and  leave  Miss 
Gage  on  our  hands ;  that  we  were  not  wicked  in  per 
mitting  the  young  fellow  to  help  us  make  her  have  a 
good  time.  In  this  colloquy  I  did  all  the  reasoning, 


A    SARATOGA   IDYL.  125 

and  Mrs.  March's  conscience  was  completely  silenced  ; 
but  it  rose  triumphant  in  my  miserable  soul  when  I  met 
Miss  Gage  at  breakfast,  looking  radiantly  happy,  and 
disposed  to  fellowship  me  in  an  unusual  confidence 
because,  as  I  clearly  perceived,  of  our  last  night's  ad 
venture.  I  said  to  myself  bitterly  that  happiness  did 
not  become  her  style,  and  I  hoped  that  she  would  get 
away  with  her  confounded  rapture  before  Mrs.  March 
came  down.  I  resolved  not  to  tell  Mrs.  March  if  it 
fell  out  so,  but  at  the  same  time,  as  a  sort  of  atone 
ment,  I  decided  to  begin  keeping  the  sharpest  kind  of 
watch  upon  Miss  Gage  for  the  outward  signs  and  to 
kens  of  love. 

She  said,  "  When  you  began  to  talk  that  way  last 
night,  Mr.  March,  it  almost  took  my  breath,  and  if  you 
hadn't  gone  so  far,  and  mentioned  about  the  sunset 
through  the  sleety  trees,  I  never  should  have  suspected 
you." 

"Ah,  that's  the  trouble  with  men,  Miss  Gage." 
And  when  I  said  "  men  "  I  fancied  she  flushed  a  little. 
"  We  never  know  when  to  stop ;  we  always  overdo 
it ;  if  it  were  not  for  that  we  should  be  as  perfect  as 
women.  Perhaps  you'll  give  me  another  chance, 
though." 

"  No ;  we  shall  be  on  our  guard  after  this."     She 


126  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

corrected  herself  and  said,  "  I  shall  always  be  looking 
out  for  you  now,"  and  she  certainly  showed  herself 
conscious  in  the  bridling  glance  that  met  my  keen  gaze. 

"  Good  heavens  !  "  I  thought.  "  Has  it  really  gone 
so  far  ? "  and  more  than  ever  I  resolved  not  to  tell 
Mrs.  March. 

I  went  out  to  engage  a  carriage  to  take  us  to  the 
races,  and  to  agree  with  the  driver  that  he  should  wait 
for  us  at  a  certain  corner  some  blocks  distant  from  our 
hotel,  where  we  were  to  walk  and  find  him.  We  al 
ways  did  this,  because  there  were  a  number  of  clergy 
men  in  our  house,  and  Mrs.  March  could  not  make  it 
seem  right  to  start  for  the  races  direct  from  the  door, 
though  she  held  that  it  was  perfectly  right  for  us  to 
go.  For  the  same  reason  she  made  the  driver  stop 
short  of  our  destination  on  our  return,  and  walked 
home  the  rest  of  the  way.  Almost  the  first  time  we 
practiced  this  deception  I  was  met  at  the  door  by  the 
sweetest  and  dearest  of  these  old  divines,  who  said, 
"  Have  you  ever  seen  the  races  here  ?  I'm  told  the 
spectacle  is  something  very  fine,"  and  I  was  obliged 
to  own  that  I  had  once  had  a  glimpse  of  them.  But 
it  was  in  vain  that  I  pleaded  this  fact  with  Mrs.  March ; 
she  insisted  that  the  appearance  of  not  going  to  the 
races  was  something  that  we  owed  the  cloth,  and  no 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  127 

connivance  on  their  part  could  dispense  us  from  it. 

As  I  now  went  looking  up  and  down  the  street  for 
the  driver  who  was  usually  on  the  watch  for  me  about 
eleven  o'clock  on  a  fair  day  of  the  races,  I  turned  over 
in  my  mind  the  several  accidents  which  are  employed 
in  novels  to  bring  young  people  to  a  realizing  sense  of 
their  feelings  toward  each  other,  and  wondered  which 
of  them  I  might  most  safely  invoke.  I  was  not  anx 
ious  to  have  Kendricks  and  Miss  Gage  lovers ;  it  would 
be  altogether  simpler  for  us  if  they  were  not ;  but  if 
they  were,  the  sooner  they  knew  it  and  we  knew  it 
the  better.  I  thought  of  a  carriage  accident,  in  which 
he  should  seize  her  and  leap  with  her  from  the  flying 
vehicle,  while  the  horses  plunged  madly  on,  but  I  did 
not  know  what  in  this  case  would  become  of  Mrs. 
March  and  me.  Besides,  I  could  think  of  nothing 
that  would  frighten  our  driver's  horses,  and  I  dismissed 
the  fleeting  notion  of  getting  any  others  because  Mrs. 
March  liked  their  being  so  safe,  and  she  had,  besides, 
interested  herself  particularly  in  the  driver,  who  had  a 
family  and  counted  upon  our  custom.  The  poor  fellow 
came  in  sight  presently,  and  smilingly  made  the  usual 
arrangement  with  me,  and  an  hour  later  he  delivered 
us  all  sound  in  wind  and  limb  at  the  race-course. 

I  watched  in  vain  for  signs  of  uncommon  tenderness 


128  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

in  the  two  young  people.  If  anything  they  were 
rather  stiff  and  distant  with  each  other,  and  I  asked 
myself  whether  this  might  not  be  from  an  access  of 
consciousness.  Kendricks  was  particularly  devoted  to 
Mrs.  March,  who,  in  the  airy  detachment  with  which 
she  responded  to  his  attentions,  gave  me  the  impres 
sion  that  she  had  absolutely  dismissed  her  suspicions 
of  the  night  before,  or  else  had  heartlessly  abandoned 
the  affair  to  me  altogether.  If  she  had  really  done 
this,  then  I  saw  no  way  out  of  it  for  me  but  by  an 
accident  which  should  reveal  them  to  each  other. 
Perhaps  some  one  might  insult  Miss  Gage — some  ruf 
fian — and  Kendricks  might  strike  the  fellow ;  but  this 
seemed  too  squalid.  There  might  be  a  terrible  jam, 
and  he  interpose  his  person  between  her  and  the  dan 
ger  of  her  being  crushed  to  death ;  or  the  floor  of  the 
grand  stand  might  give  way,  and  everybody  be  pre 
cipitated  into  the  space  beneath,  and  he  fight  his  way, 
with  her  senseless  form  on  his  arm,  over  the  bodies  of 
the  mangled  and  dying.  Any  of  these  things  would 
have  availed  in  a  novel,  and  something  of  the  kind 
would  have  happened,  too.  But,  to  tell  the  truth, 
nothing  whatever  happened,  and  if  it  had  not  been  for 
that  anxiety  on  my  mind  I  should  have  thought  it 
much  pleasanter  so. 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  1^9 

Even  as  it  was  I  felt  a  measure  of  the  hilarity  which 
commonly  fills  me  at  a  running  race,  and  I  began  to 
lose  in  the  charm  of  the  gay  scene  the  sense  of  my 
responsibility,  and  little  by  little  to  abate  the  vigilance 
apparently  left  all  to  me.  The  day  was  beautiful ;  the 
long  heat  had  burned  itself  out,  and  there  was  a  clear 
sparkle  in  the  sunshine,  which  seemed  blown  across 
the  wide  space  within  the  loop  of  the  track  by  the  del 
icate  breeze.  A  vague,  remote  smell  of  horses  haunted 
the  air,  with  now  and  then  a  breath  of  the  pines  from 
the  grove  shutting  the  race-ground  from  the  highway. 
We  got  excellent  places,  as  one  always  may,  the  grand 
stand  is  so  vast,  and  the  young  people  disposed  them 
selves  on  the  bench  in  front  of  us,  but  so  near  that  we 
were  not  tempted  to  talk  them  over.  The  newsboys 
came  round  with  papers,  and  the  boys  who  sold  pro 
grammes  of  the  races;  from  the  bar  below  there  ap 
peared  from  time  to  time  shining  negroes  in  white  linen 
jackets,  with  trays  bearing  tall  glasses  of  lemonade,  and 
straws  tilted  in  the  glasses.  Book-makers  from  the 
pool-rooms  took  the  bets  of  the  ladies,  who  formed  by 
far  the  greater  part  of  the  spectators  on  the  grand 
stand,  and  contributed,  with  their  summer  hats  and 
gowns,  to  the  gayety  of  the  ensemble.  They  were  of 
all  types,  city  and  country  both,  and  of  the  Southern 
I 


130  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

dark  as  well  as  the  Northern  fair  complexion,  with  so 
thick  a  sprinkling  of  South  Americans  that  the  Span 
ish  gutterals  made  themselves  almost  as  much  heard 
as  the  Yankee  nasals.  Among  them  moved  two  nuns 
of  some  mendicant  order,  receiving  charity  from  the 
fair  gamblers,  who  gave  for  luck  without  distinction 
of  race  or  religion. 

I  leaned  forward  and  called  Kendricks's  attention  to 
the  nuns,  and  to  the  admirable  literary  quality  of  the 
whole  situation.  He  was  talking  to  Miss  Gage,  and 
he  said  as  impatiently  as  he  ever  suffered  himself  to 
speak,  "  Yes,  yes  ;  tremendously  picturesque." 

"  You  ought  to  get  something  out  of  it,  my  dear 
fellow.  Don't  you  feel  copy  in  it  ?  " 

"  Oh,  splendid,  of  course ;  but  it's  your  ground,  Mr. 
March.  I  shouldn't  feel  it  right  to  do  anything  with 
Saratoga  after  you  had  discovered  it,"  and  he  turned 
eagerly  again  to  Miss  Gage. 

My  wife  put  her  hand  on  my  sleeve  and  frowned, 
and  I  had  so  far  lost  myself  in  my  appreciation  of  the 
scene  that  I  was  going  to  ask  her  what  the  matter  was, 
when  a  general  sensation  about  me  made  me  look  at 
the  track,  where  the  horses  for  the  first  race  had  al 
ready  appeared,  with  their  jockeys  in  vivid  silk  jackets 
of  various  dyes.  They  began  to  form  for  the  start 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  131 

with  the  usual  tricks  and  feints,  till  I  became  very 
indignant  with  them,  though  I  had  no  bets  pending, 
arid  did  not  care  in  the  least  which  horse  won.  What 
I  wanted  was  to  see  the  race,  the  flight,  and  all  this 
miserable  manoeuvring  was  retarding  it.  Now  and 
then  a  jockey  rode  his  horse  far  off  on  the  track  and 
came  back  between  the  false  starts;  now  and  then 
one  kept  stubbornly  behind  the  rest  and  would  not 
start  with  them.  How  their  several  schemes  and  am 
bitions  were  finally  reconciled  I  never  could  tell,  but 
at  last  the  starter's  flag  swept  down  and  they  were 
really  off.  Everybody  could  have  seen  perfectly  well 
as  they  sat,  but  everybody  rose  and  watched  the  swift 
swoop  of  the  horses,  bunched  together  in  the  distance, 
and  scarcely  distinguishable  by  the  colors  of  their 
riders.  The  supreme  moment  came  for  me  when  they 
were  exactly  opposite  the  grand  stand,  full  half  a  mile 
away — the  moment  that  I  remembered  from  year  to 
year  as  one  of  exquisite  illusion — for  then  the  horses 
seemed  to  lift  from  the  earth  as  with  wings,  and  to 
skim  over  the  track  like  a  covey  of  low-flying  birds. 
The  finish  was  tame  to  this.  Mrs.  March  and  I  had 
our  wonted  difference  of  opinion  as  to  which  horse 
had  won,  and  we  were  rather  uncommonly  controver 
sial  because  we  had  both  decided  upon  the  same  horse, 


132  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

as  we  found,  only  she  was  talking  of  the  jockey's 
colors,  and  I  was  talking  of  the  horse's.  We  appealed 
to  Kendricks,  who  said  that  another  horse  altogether 
had  won  the  race,  and  this  compromise  pacified  us. 

We  were  all  on  foot,  and  he  suggested,  "  We  could 
see  better,  couldn't  we,  if  we  went  farther  down  in 
front  ? "  And  Mrs.  March  answered : 

"  No,  we  prefer  to  stay  here ;  but  you  two  can  go." 
And  when  they  had  promptly  availed  themselves  of 
her  leave,  she  said  to  me,  "  This  is  killing  me  dead, 
Basil,  and  if  it  keeps  up  much  longer  I  don't  believe 
I  can  live  through  it.  I  don't  care  now,  and  I  believe 
I  shall  throw  them  together  all  I  can  from  this  out. 
The  quicker  they  decide  whether  they're  in  love  or 
not  the  better.  /  have  some  rights  too." 

Her  whirling  words  expressed  the  feeling  in  my 
own  mind.  I  had  the  same  sense  of  being  trifled  with 
by  these  young  people,  who  would  not  behave  so  con 
clusively  toward  each  other  as  to  justify  our  interfer 
ence  on  the  ground  that  they  were  in  love,  nor  yet 
treat  each  other  so  indifferently  as  to  relieve  us  of  the 
strain  of  apprehension.  I  had  lost  all  faith  in  accident 
by  this  time,  and  I  was  quite  willing  to  leave  them  to 
their  own  devices;  I  was  so  desperate  that  I  said  I 
hoped  they  would  get  lost  from  us,  as  they  had  from 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  133 

me  the  night  before,  and  never  come  back,  but  just 
keep  on  wandering  round  forever.  All  sorts  of  venge 
ful  thoughts  went  through  my  mind  as  I  saw  them 
leaning  toward  each  other  to  say  something,  and  then 
drawing  apart  to  laugh  in  what  seemed  an  indefinite 
comradery  instead  of  an  irrepressible  passion.  Did 
they  think  we  were  going  to  let  this  sort  of  thing  go 
on  ?  What  did  they  suppose  our  nerves  were  made  of  ? 
Had  they  no  mercy,  no  consideration  ?  It  was  quite 
like  the  selfishness  of  youth  to  wish  to  continue  in  that 
fool's  paradise,  but  they  would  find  out  that  middle 
age  had  its  rights  too.  I  felt  capable  of  asking  them 
bluntly  what  they  meant  by  it.  But  when  they  doc 
ilely  rejoined  us  at  the  end  of  the  races,  hurrying  up 
with  some  joke  about  not  letting  me  get  lost  this  time, 
and  Miss  Gage  put  herself  at  my  wife's  side  and  Ken- 
dricks  dropped  into  step  with  me,  all  I  had  been 
thinking  seemed  absurd.  They  were  just  two  young 
people  who  were  enjoying  a  holiday  time  together, 
and  we  were  in  no  wise  culpable  concerning  them. 

I  suggested  this  to  Mrs.  March  when  we  got  home, 
and,  in  the  need  of  some  relief  from  the  tension  she 
had  been  in,  she  was  fain  to  accept  the  theory  pro 
visionally,  though  I  knew  that  her  later  rejection  of  it 
would  be  all  the  more  violent  for  this  respite. 


XV. 

THERE  was  to  be  a  hop  at  the  Grand  Union  that 
night,  and  I  had  got  tickets  for  it  in  virtue  of  my  rela 
tion  to  "  Every  Other  Week."  I  must  say  the  clerk 
who  gave  them  me  was  very  civil  about  it;  he  said 
they  were  really  only  for  the  hotel  guests,  but  he  was 
glad  to  give  them  to  outsiders  who  applied  with  proper 
credentials ;  and  he  even  offered  me  more  tickets  than 
I  asked  for. 

Miss  Gage  was  getting  a  dress  for  the  hop,  and  it 
was  to  be  finished  that  day.  I  think  women  really  like 
the  scare  of  thinking  their  dresses  will  not  be  done  for 
a  given  occasion,  and  so  arrange  to  have  them  at  the 
last  moment.  Mrs.  March  went  with  the  girl  early  in 
the  afternoon  to  have  it  tried  on  for  the  last  time,  and 
they  came  home  reporting  that  it  was  a  poem.  My 
wife  confided  to  me  that  it  was  not  half  done — merely 
begun,  in  fact — and  would  never  be  finished  in  time 
in  the  world.  She  also  assured  Miss  Gage  that  she 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  135 

need  not  be  the  least  uneasy ;  that  there  was  not  an 
hour's  work  on  the  dress ;  and  that  the  dressmaker's 
reputation  was  at  stake,  and  she  would  not  dare  to 
fail  her.  I  knew  she  was  perfectly  sincere  in  both 
these  declarations,  which  were,  indeed,  merely  the  ex 
pression  of  two  mental  attitudes,  and  had  no  relation 
to  the  facts. 

She  added  to  me  that  she  was  completely  worn  out 
with  anxiety  and  worry,  and  I  must  not  think  of  her 
going  to  the  hop.  I  would  have  to  do  the  chaperon 
ing  for  her,  and  she  did  hope  that  I  would  not  forget 
what  I  was  sent  for,  or  get  talking  with  somebody, 
and  leave  Miss  Gage  altogether  to  Kendricks.  She  said 
that  quite  likely  there  might  be  friends  or  acquaint 
ances  of  his  at  the  hop — such  a  large  affair — whom 
he  would  want  to  show  some  attention,  and  I  must 
take  charge  of  Miss  Gage  myself,  and  try  to  find  her 
other  partners.  She  drilled  me  in  the  duties  of  my 
position  until  I  believed  that  I  was  letter-perfect,  and 
then  she  said  that  she  supposed  I  would  commit  some 
terrible  blunder  that  would  ruin  everything. 

I  thought  that  this  was  very  likely,  too,  but  I  would 
not  admit  it. 

The  dress  came  home  at  nine  o'clock,  and  operated 
a  happy  diversion  from  my  imaginable  shortcomings ; 


136  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

for  it  appeared  from  Mrs.  March's  asides  to  me  that  it 
was  a  perfect  horror  in  the  set,  and  that  everybody 
could  see  that  it  had  been  simply  slung  together  at  the 
last  moment,  and  she  would  never,  as  long  as  the  world 
stood,  go  to  that  woman  for  anything  again. 

I  must  say  I  could  not  myself  see  anything  wrong 
about  the  dress.  I  thought  it  exquisite  in  tint  and 
texture ;  a  delicate,  pale-greenish  film  that  clung  and 
floated,  and  set  off  the  girl's  beauty  as  the  leafage  of 
a  flower  heightens  the  loveliness  of  a  flower.  I  did 
not  dare  to  say  this  in  the  face  of  Mrs.  March's  private 
despair,  and  I  was  silent  while  the  girl  submitted  to 
be  twirled  about  for  my  inspection  like  a  statue  on  a 
revolving  pedestal.  Kendricks,  however,  had  no  such 
restrictions  upon  him,  and  I  could  see  him  start  with 
delight  in  the  splendid  vision  before  he  spoke. 

"  Isn't  it  a  poem  ? "  demanded  Mrs.  March.  "  Isn't 
it  a  perfect  lyric  ?  " 

"  Why  should  you  have  allowed  her  to  be  trans 
ported  altogether  into  the  ideal  ?  Wasn't  she  far 
enough  from  us  before  ? "  he  asked ;  and  I  found 
myself  wishing  that  he  would  be  either  less  or  more 
articulate.  He  ought  to  have  been  mute  with  passion, 
or  else  he  ought  to  have  been  frankly  voluble  about 
the  girl's  gown,  and  gone  on  about  it  longer.  But  he 


•:-  TV 
or 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL. 

simply  left  the  matter  there,  and  though  I  kept  him 
carefully  under  my  eye,  I  could  not  see  that  he  was 
concealing  any  further  emotion.  She,  on  her  part, 
neither  blushed  nor  frowned  at  his  compliment;  she 
did  nothing  by  look  or  gesture  to  provoke  more  praise ; 
she  took  it  very  much  as  the  beautiful  evening  might, 
so  undeniably  fine,  so  perfect  in  its  way. 

She  and  the  evening  were  equally  fitted  for  the  event 
to  which  they  seemed  equally  dedicated.  The  dancing 
was  to  be  out  of  doors  on  a  vast  planking,  or  platform, 
set  up  in  the  heart  of  that  bosky  court  which  the  hotel 
incloses.  Around  this  platform  drooped  the  slim,  tall 
Saratogan  trees,  and  over  it  hung  the  Saratogan  sky, 
of  a  nocturnal  blue  very  rare  in  our  latitude,  with  the 
stars  faint  in  its  depths,  and  by  and  by  a  white  moon 
that  permitted  itself  a  modest  competition  with  the 
electric  lights  effulgent  everywhere.  There  was  a  great 
crowd  of  people  in  the  portico,  the  vestibule,  and  the 
inner  piazzas,  and  on  the  lawn  around  the  platform, 
where  "  the  trodden  weed  "  sent  up  the  sweet  scent  of 
bruised  grass  in  the  cool  night  air.  My  foolish  old 
heart  bounded  with  a  pulse  of  youth  at  the  thought  of 
all  the  gay  and  tender  possibilities  of  such  a  scene. 

But  the  young  people  under  my  care  seemed  in  no 
haste  to  mingle  in  it.  We  oldsters  are  always  fancying 


138  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY: 

youth  impatient,  but  there  is  no  time  of  life  which  has 
so  much  patience.  It  behaves  as  if  it  had  eternity 
before  it, — an  eternity  of  youth, — instead  of  a  few 
days  and  years,  and  then  the  frosty  poll.  We  who 
are  young  no  longer  think  we  would  do  so  and  so  if 
we  were  young,  as  women  think  they  would  do  so  and 
so  if  they  were  men;  but  if  we  were  really  young 
again,  we  should  not  do  at  all  what  we  think.  We 
should  not  hurry  to  experience  our  emotions ;  we 
should  not  press  forward  to  discharge  our  duties  or 
repair  our  mistakes ;  we  should  not  seize  the  occasion 
to  make  a  friend  or  reconcile  an  enemy ;  we  should 
let  weeks  and  months  go  by  in  the  realization  of  a 
passion,  and  trust  all  sorts  of  contingencies  and  acci 
dents  to  help  us  out  with  its  confession.  The  thoughts 
of  youth  are  very  long,  and  its  conclusions  are  delib 
erate  and  delayed,  and  often  withheld  altogether.  It 
is  age  which  is  tremulously  eager  in  these  matters,  and 
cannot  wait  with  the  tine  patience  of  nature  in  her 
growing  moods. 

As  soon,  even,  as  I  was  in  the  hotel  I  was  impatient 
to  press  through  to  the  place  where  the  dancing  was, 
and  where  I  already  heard  the  band  playing.  I  knew 
very  well  that  when  we  got  there  I  should  have  to  sit 
down  somewhere  on  the  edge  of  the  platform  with  the 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  139 

other  frumps  and  fogies,  and  begin  taking  cold  in  my 
dress-coat,  and  want  to  doze  off  without  being  able  to, 
while  my  young  people  were  waltzing  together,  or  else 
promenading  up  and  down  ignoring  me,  or  recognizing 
me  by  the  offer  of  a  fan,  and  the  question  whether  I 
was  not  simply  melting;  I  have  seen  how  the  poor 
chaperon  fares  at  such  times.  But  they,  secure  of 
their  fun,  were  by  no  means  desirous  to  have  it  over, 
or  even  to  have  it  begin.  They  dawdled  through  the 
thronged  hotel  office,  where  other  irresponsible  pairs 
were  coming  and  going  under  the  admiring  eyes  of 
the  hotel  loungers,  and  they  wandered  up  and  down 
the  waste  parlors,  and  sat  on  tete-a-tetes  just  to  try 
them,  apparently  ;  and  Miss  Gage  verified  in  the  mir 
rors  the  beauty  which  was  reflected  in  all  eyes.  They 
amused  themselves  with  the  extent  of  the  richly  car 
peted  and  upholstered  desolation  around  them,  where 
only  a  few  lonely  and  aging  women  lurked  about  on 
sofas  and  ottomans ;  and  they  fell  to  playing  with  their 
compassion  for  the  plebeian  spectators  at  the  long  ver 
anda  windows  trying  to  penetrate  with  their  forbidden 
eyes  to  the  hop  going  on  in  the  court  far  beyond  the 
intermediary  desert  of  the  parlors. 

When  they  signified  at  last  that  they  were  ready 
for  me  to  lead  them  on  to  the  dance,  I  would  so  much 


140  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

rather  have  gone  to  bed  that  there  are  no  words  for 
the  comparison.  Then,  when  we  got  to  the  place, 
which  I  should  never  have  been  able  to  reach  in  the 
world  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  young  energy  and  in 
spiration  of  Kendricks,  and  they  had  put  me  in  a  cer 
tain  seat  with  Miss  Gage's  wraps  beside  me  where  they 
could  find  me,  they  went  oil  and  danced  for  hours  and 
hours.  For  hours  and  hours  ?  For  ages  and  ages ! 
while  I  withered  away  amid  mouldering  mothers,  and 
saw  my  charges  through  the  dreadful  half-dreams  of 
such  a  state  whirling  in  the  waltz,  hopping  in  the  polka, 
sliding  in  the  galop,  and  then  endlessly  walking  up 
and  down  between  the  dances,  and  eating  and  drinking 
the  chill  refreshments  that  it  made  my  teeth  chatter 
to  think  of.  I  suppose  they  decently  came  tp  me  from 
time  to  time,  though  they  seemed  to  be  always  danc 
ing,  for  I  could  afterward  remember  Miss  Gage  taking 
a  wrap  from  me  now  and  then,  and  quickly  coming 
back  to  shed  it  upon  my  lap  again.  I  got  so  chilled 
that  if  they  had  not  been  unmistakably  women's  wraps 
I  should  have  bundled  them  all  about  my  shoulders, 
which  I  could  almost  hear  creak  with  rheumatism.  I 
must  have  fallen  into  a  sort  of  drowse  at  last ;  for  I 
was  having  a  dispute  with  some  sort  of  authority, 
which  turned  out  to  be  Mrs.  March,  and  upbraiding 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  141 

her  with  the  fact  that  there  were  no  women's  wraps 
which  would  also  do  for  a  man,  when  the  young  people 
stood  arm  in  arm  before  me,  and  Miss  Gage  said  that 
she  was  tired  to  death  now,  and  they  were  going. 

But  it  appeared  that  they  were  only  going  as  far  as 
the  parlors  for  the  present ;  for  when  they  reentered 
the  hotel,  they  turned  into  them,  and  sat  down  there 
quite  as  if  that  had  been  the  understanding.  When  I 
arrived  with  the  wraps,  I  was  reminded  of  something, 
and  I  said,  "  Have  you  two  been  dancing  together  the 
whole  evening  ? " 

They  looked  at  each  other  as  if  for  the  first  time 
they  now  realized  the  fact,  and  Kendricks  said,  "  Why, 
of  course  we  have  !  We  didn't  know  anybody." 

"Very  well,  then,"  I  said;  "you  have  got  me  into 
a  scrape." 

"Oh,  poor  Mr.  March!"  cried  the  girl.  "How 
have  we  done  it  ?  " 

"  Why,  Mrs.  March  said  that  Mr.  Kendricks  would 
be  sure  to  know  numbers  of  people,  and  I  must  get 
you  other  partners,  for  it  wouldn't  do  for  you  to  dance 
the  whole  evening  together." 

She  threw  herself  back  in  the  chair  she  had  taken, 
and  laughed  as  if  this  were  the  best  joke  in  the  world. 

He  said  hardily,  "  You  see  it  has  done." 


142  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

"  And  if  it  wouldn't  do,"  she  gasped,  "  why  didn't 
you  bring  me  the  other  partners  ? " 

"  Because  I  didn't  know  any,"  I  said ;  and  this 
seemed  to  amuse  them  both  so  much  that  I  was  afraid 
they  would  never  get  their  breath. 

She  looked  by  and  by  at  her  dancing-card,  and  as 
soon  as  she  could  wipe  the  tears  from  her  eyes  she 
said,  "  No ;  there  is  no  other  name  there ;  "  and  this 
seemed  even  a  better  joke  than  the  other  from  the  way 
they  joined  in  laughing  at  it. 

"  Well,  now,"  I  said,  when  they  were  quiet  again, 
"  this  won't  do,  my  young  friends.  It's  all  very  well 
for  you,  and  you  seem  to  like  it ;  but  I  am  responsible 
for  your  having  passed  a  proper  evening  under  my 
chaperonage,  and  something  has  got  to  be  done  to  prove 
it."  They  saw  the  reasonableness  of  this,  and  they 
immediately  became  sober.  "Kendricks,"  I  asked, 
"  can't  you  think  of  something  ?  " 

No,  he  said,  he  couldn't ;  and  then  he  began  to 
laugh  again. 

I  applied  to  her  in  the  same  terms;  but  she  only 
answered,  "  Oh,  don't  ask  me"  and  she  went  off  laugh 
ing,  too. 

"  Very  well,  then,"  I  said ;  "  I  shall  have  to  do  some 
thing  desperate,  and  I  shall  expect  you  both  to  bear 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  143 

me  out  in  it,  and  I  don't  want  any  miserable  subter 
fuges  when  it  comes  to  the  point  with  Mrs.  March. 
Will  you  let  me  have  your  dancing- card,  Miss  Gage  ? " 
She  detached  it,  and  handed  it  to  me.  "  It's  very 
fortunate  that  Mr.  Kendricks  wrote  his  name  for  the 
first  dance  only,  and  didn't  go  on  and  fill  it  up." 

"  Why,  we  didn't  think  it  was  worth  while ! "  she 
innocently  explained. 

"  And  that's  what  makes  it  so  perfectly  providential, 
as  Mrs.  March  says.  Now  then,"  I  went  on,  as  I  wrote 
in  the  name  of  a  rising  young  politician,  who  happened 
just  then  to  have  been  announced  as  arriving  in  Sara 
toga  to  join  some  other  leaders  in  arranging  the  slate 
of  his  party  for  the  convention  to  meet  a  month  later, 
"  we  will  begin  with  a  good  American." 

I  handed  the  card  to  Kendricks.  "  Do  you  happen 
to  remember  the  name  of  the  young  French  nobleman 
who  danced  the  third  dance  with  Miss  Gage  ? " 

"  No,"  he  said ;  "  but  I  think  I  could  invent  it." 
And  he  dashed  down  an  extremely  probable  marquis, 
while  Miss  Gage  clapped  her  hands  for  joy. 

"  Oh,  how  glorious !  how  splendid  !  " 

I  asked,  "  Will  you  ever  give  me  away  the  longest 
day  you  live?" 

"  Never,"  she  promised ;  and  I  added  the  name  of 


144  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY: 

a  South  American  doctor,  one  of  those  doctors  who 
seem  to  be  always  becoming  the  presidents  of  their 
republics,  and  ordering  all  their  patients  of  opposite 
politics  to  be  shot  in  the  plaza. 

Kendricks  entered  a  younger  son  of  an  English  duke, 
and  I  contributed  the  hyphenated  surname  of  a  New 
York  swell,  and  between  us  we  soon  had  all  the  dances 
on  Miss  Gage's  card  taken  by  the  most  distinguished 
people.  We  really  studied  probability  in  the  forgery, 
and  we  were  proud  of  the  air  of  reality  it  wore  in  the 
carefully  differenced  handwritings,  with  national  traits 
nicely  ftcceuted  in  each. 


XVI. 

THE  fun  of  it  all  was  that  Mrs.  March  was  not 
deceived  for  an  instant.  "  Oh,  nonsense  !  "  she  said, 
when  she  glanced  at  our  pretty  deception,  which  we 
presented  with  perhaps  too  perfect  seriousness.  "  Then 
you  danced  only  the  first  dance  ? " 

"  No,  no  !  "  Miss  Gage  protested.  "  I  danced  every 
dance  as  long  as  I  stayed."  She  laughed  with  her 
handkerchief  to  her  mouth  and  her  eyes  shining  above. 

"  Yes ;  I  can  testify  to  that,  Mrs.  March,"  said  Ken- 
dricks,  and  he  laughed  wildly,  too.  I  must  say  their 
laughter  throughout  was  far  beyond  the  mirthfulness 
of  the  facts.  They  both  protested  that  they  had  had 
the  best  time  in  the  world,  and  the  gayest  time ;  that 
I  had  been  a  mirror  of  chaperons,  and  followed  them 
round  with  my  eyes  wherever  they  went  like  a  family 
portrait ;  and  that  they  were  the  most  exemplary  young 
couple  at  the  hop  in  their  behavior.  Mrs.  March  asked 
them  all  about  it,  and  she  joined  in  their  fun  with  a 
J 


146  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

hilarity  which  I  knew  from  long  experience  boded  me 
no  good. 

When  Kendricks  had  gone  away,  and  Miss  Gage 
had  left  us  for  the  night  with  an  embrace,  whose  fond 
ness  I  wondered  at,  from  Mrs.  March,  an  awful  silence 
fell  upon  us  in  the  deserted  parlor  where  she  had 
waited  up. 

I  knew  that  when  she  broke  the  silence  she  would 
begin  with,  "  Well,  my  dear !  "  and  this  was  what  she 
did.  She  added,  "  I  hope  you're  convinced  now  !  " 

I  did  not  even  pretend  not  to  understand.  "  You 
mean  that  they  are  in  love  ?  I  suppose  that  their  we- 
ing  and  us-ing  so  much  would  indicate  something  of 
the  kind." 

"  It  isn't  that  alone  ;  everything  indicates  it.  She 
would  hardly  let  go  of  him  with  her  eyes.  I  wish," 
sighed  Mrs.  March,  and  she  let  her  head  droop  upon 
her  hand  a  moment,  "  I  could  be  as  sure  of  him  as  I 
am  of  her." 

"  Wouldn't  that  double  the  difficulty  ? "  I  ventured 
to  suggest,  though  till  she  spoke  I  had  not  doubted 
that  it  was  the  case. 

"  I  should  make  you  speak  to  him  if  I  were  sure  of 
him ;  but  as  it  is  I  shall  speak  to  her,  and  the  sooner 
the  better." 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  147 

"  To-night?"  I  quaked. 

"  No ;  I  shall  let  the  poor  thing  have  her  sleep  to 
night.  But  the  first  thing  in  the  morning  I  shall  speak, 
and  I  want  you  to  send  her  up  to  me  as  soon  as  she's 
had  her  breakfast.  Tell  her  I'm  not  well,  and  shall 
not  be  down ;  I  shall  not  close  my  eyes  the  whole 
night.  And  now,"  she  added,  "  I  want  you  to  tell  me 
everything  that  happened  this  evening.  Don't  omit  a 
word,  or  a  look,  or  a  motion.  I  wish  to  proceed  in 
telligently." 

I  hope  I  was  accurate  in  the  history  of  the  hop 
which  I  gave  Mrs.  March ;  I  am  sure  I  was  full.  I 
think  my  account  may  be  justly  described  as  having  a 
creative  truthfulness,  if  no  other  merit.  I  had  really 
no  wish  to  conceal  anything  except  the  fact  that  I  had 
not,  in  my  utter  helplessness,  even  tried  to  get  Miss 
Gage  any  other  partners.  But  in  the  larger  interest 
of  the  present  situation,  Mrs.  March  seemed  to  have 
lost  the  sense  of  my  dereliction  in  this  respect.  She 
merely  asked,  "  And  it  was  after  you  went  back  to  the 
parlor,  just  before  you  came  home,  that  you  wrote 
those  names  on  her  card  ? " 

"  Kendricks  wrote  half  of  them,"  I  said. 

"  I  dare  say.  Well,  it  was  very  amusing,  and  if  the 
circumstances  were  different,  I  could  have  entered  into 


148  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

the  spirit  of  it  too.  But  you  see  yourself,  Basil,  that 
we  can't  let  this  affair  go  any  further  without  dealing 
frankly  with  her.  You  can't  speak  to  her,  and  /  must. 
Don't  you  see  ? " 

I  said  that  I  saw,  but  I  had  suddenly  a  wild  wish 
that  it  were  practicable  for  me  to  speak  to  Miss  Gage. 
I  should  have  liked  to  have  a  peep  into  a  girl's  heart 
at  just  such  a  moment,  when  it  must  be  quivering  with 
the  unconfessed  sense  of  love,  and  the  confident  hope 
of  being  loved,  but  while  as  yet  nothing  was  assured, 
nothing  was  ascertained.  If  it  would  not  have  been 
shocking,  if  it  would  not  have  been  sacrilegious,  it 
would  have  been  infinitely  interesting,  and  from  an 
esthetic  point  of  view  infinitely  important.  I  thought 
that  I  should  have  been  willing  to  undergo  all  the 
embarrassment  of  such  an  inquiry  for  the  sake  of  its 
precious  results,  if  it  had  been  at  all  possible ;  but  I 
acquiesced  that  it  would  not  be  possible.  I  felt  that  I 
was  getting  off  pretty  lightly  not  to  have  it  brought 
home  to  me  again  that  I  was  the  cause  of  all  this 
trouble,  and  that  if  it  had  not-  been  for  me  there  would 
have  been,  as  far  as  Mrs.  March  was  concerned,  no 
Miss  Gage,  and  no  love-affair  of  hers  to  deal  with.  I 
debated  in  my  mind  a  moment  whether  I  had  better 
urge  her  to  let  me  speak  to  Kendricks  after  all ;  but 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  149 

I  forbore,  and  in  the  morning  I  waited  about  in  much 
perturbation,  after  I  had  sent  Miss  Gage  to  her,  until 
I  could  know  the  result  of  their  interview.  When  I 
saw  the  girl  come  away  from  her  room,  which  she  did 
rather  trippingly,  I  went  to  her,  and  found  her  by  no 
means  the  wreck  I  had  expected  the  ordeal  to  leave 
her. 

"  Did  you  meet  Miss  Gage  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Yes,"  1  returned,  with  tremulous  expectation. 

"  Well,  don't  you  think  she  looks  perfectly  divine 
in  that  gown  ?  It's  one  of  Mme.  Cody's,  and  we  got 
it  for  thirty  dollars.  It  would  have  been  fifty  in  New 
York,  and  it  was,  here,  earlier  in  the  season.  I  shall 
always  come  here  for  some  of  my  things ;  as  soon  as 
the  season's  a  little  past  they  simply  fling  them  away. 
Wrell,  my  dear  ! " 

"  Well,  what  ? " 

"  I  didn't  speak  to  her  after  all." 

"  You  didn't !  Don't  you  think  she's  in  love  with 
him, then  ? " 

"  Dead." 

"Well?" 

"  Well,  I  couldn't  somehow  seem  to  approach  the 
subject  as  I  had  expected  to.  She  was  so  happy,  and 
so  good,  and  so  perfectly  obedient,  that  I  couldn't  get 


150  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

anything  to  take  hold  of.  You  see,  I  didn't  know 
but  she  might  be  a  little  rebellious,  or  resentful  of  my 
interference  ;  but  in  the  little  gingerly  attempts  I  did 
make  she  was  so  submissive,  don't  you  understand  ? 
And  she  was  very  modest  about  Mr.  Kendrick's  atten 
tions,  and  so  self-depreciatory  that,  well — " 

"Look  here,  Isabel,"  I  broke  in,  "this  is  pretty 
shameless  of  you.  You  pretend  to  be  in  the  greatest 
kind  of  fidge  about  this  girl ;  and  you  make  me  lie 
awake  all  night  thinking  what  you're  going  to  say  to 
her ;  and  now  you  as  much  as  tell  me  you  were  so  fas 
cinated  with  the  modest  way  she  was  in  love  that  you 
couldn't  say  anything  to  her  against  being  in  love  on 
our  hands  in  any  sort  of  way.  Do  you  call  this  busi 
ness?" 

"  Well,  I  don't  care  if  I  did  encourage  her — " 

"  Oh,  you  even  encouraged  her  !  " 

"  I  didn't  encourage  her.  I  merely  praised  Mr. 
Kendricks,  and  said  how  much  you  thought  of  him  as 
a  writer." 

"  Oh  !  then  you  gave  the  subject  a  literary  cast.  I 
see !  Do  you  think  Miss  Gage  was  able  to  follow 
you?" 

"  That  doesn't  matter." 

"  And  what  do  you  propose  to  do  now  ?  " 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  151 

"  I  propose  to  do  nothing.  I  think  that  I  have 
done  all  ray  duty  requires,  and  that  now  I  can  leave 
the  whole  affair  to  you.  It  was  your  affair  in  the 
beginning.  I  don't  see  why  I  should  worry  myself 
about  it." 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  this  is  a  very  strange  position 
for  a  lady  to  take  who  was  not  going  to  close  an  eye 
last  night  in  view  of  a  situation  which  has  not  changed 
in  the  least,  except  for  the  worse.  Don't  you  think 
you  are  rather  culpably  light-hearted  all  of  a  sudden  ?  " 

"  I  am  light-hearted,  but  if  there  is  any  culpability 
it  is  yours,  Basil." 

I  reflected,  but  I  failed  to  find  any  novelty  in  the 
fact.  "  Very  well,  then ;  what  do  you  propose  that  / 
should  do  ? " 

"  I  leave  that  entirely  to  your  own  conscience." 

"  And  if  my  conscience  has  no  suggestion  to  make  ? " 

"  That's  your  affair." 

I  reflected  again,  and  then  I  said,  more  than  any 
thing  to  make  her  uncomfortable,  I'm  afraid :  "  I  feel 
perfectly  easy  in  my  conscience,  personally,  but  I  have 
a  social  duty  in  the  matter,  and  I  hope  I  shall  perform 
it  with  more  fidelity  and  courage  than  you  have  shown. 
I  shall  speak  to  Kendricks." 

She  said :  "  That  is  just  what  you  ought  to  do.  I'm 


152  AN    OPEN  EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

'quite  surprised."  After  this  touch  of  irony  she  added 
earnestly,  "And  I  do  hope,  my  dear,  you  will  use 
judgment  in  speaking  to  him,  and  tact.  You  mustn't 
go  at  it  bluntly.  Remember  that  Mr.  Kendricks  is 
not  at  all  to  blame.  He  began  to  show  her  attention 
to  oblige  us,  and  if  she  has  fallen  in  love  with  him  it 
is  our  fault." 

"  I  shall  handle  him  without  gloves,"  I  said.  "  I 
shall  tell  him  he  had  better  go  away." 

I  was  joking,  but  she  said  seriously,  "  Yes ;  he  must 
go  away.  And  I  don't  envy  you  having  to  tell  him. 
I  suppose  you  will  bungle  it,  of  course." 

"Well,  then,  you  must  advise  me,"  I  said;  and  we 
really  began  to  consider  the  question.  We  could 
hardly  exaggerate  the  difficulty  and  delicacy  of  the 
duty  before  me.  We  recognized  that  before  I  made 
any  explicit  demand  of  him  I  must  first  ascertain  the 
nature  of  the  whole  ground  and  then  be  governed  by 
the  facts.  It  would  be  simple  enough  if  I  had  merely 
to  say  that  we  thought  the  girl's  affections  were  be 
coming  engaged,  and  then  appeal  to  his  eager  generos 
ity,  his  delicate  magnanimity ;  but  there  were  possible 
complications  on  his  side  which  must  be  regarded.  I 
was  to  ascertain,  we  concluded,  the  exact  nature  of  the 
situation  before  I  ventured  to  say  anything  openly.  I 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  153 

was  to  make  my  approaches  by  a  series  of  ambushes 
before  I  unmasked  my  purpose,  and  perhaps  I  must 
not  unmask  it  at  all.  As  I  set  off  on  my  mission, 
which  must  begin  with  finding  Kendricks  at  his  hotel, 
Mrs.  March  said  she  pitied  me.  She  called  me  back 
to  ask  whether  I  thought  I  had  really  better  do  any 
thing.  Then,  as  I  showed  signs  of  weakening,  she 
drove  me  from  her  with,  "  Yes,  yes !  You  must ! 
You  must ! " 


XVII. 

IT  was  still  so  early  that  I  had  my  doubts  whether 
I  should  find  Kendricks  up  after  the  last  night's  rev 
elry,  but  he  met  me  half-way  between  our  hotel  and 
his.  He  said  he  was  corning  to  see  how  Mrs.  March 
was  bearing  Miss  Gage's  immense  success  at  the  ball ; 
but  perhaps  this  was  not  his  sole  motive.  He  asked 
frankly  how  the  young  lady  was,  and  whether  I  thought 
Mrs.  March  would  consider  a  lunch  at  a  restaurant  by 
the  lake  a  good  notion.  When  I  said  I  had  very  little 
doubt  she  would,  and  proposed  taking  a  turn  in  the 
park  before  I  went  back  with  him,  he  looked  at  his 
watch,  and  laughed,  and  said  he  supposed  it  was  rather 
early  yet,  and  came  very  willingly  with  me. 

We  had  the  pretty  place  almost  to  ourselves  at  that 
hour.  There  were  a  half-dozen  or  so  nursemaids, 
pushing  their  perambulators  about,  or  standing  the 
vehicles  across  the  jyalk  in  front  of  the  benches  where 
they  sat,  in  the  simple  belief  of  all  people  who  have 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  155 

to  do  with  babies  that  the  rest  of  x  the  world  may  be 
fitly  discommoded  in  their  behalf.  But  they  did  not 
actively  molest  us,  and  they  scarcely  circumscribed 
our  choice  of  seats.  We  were  by  no  means  driven  to 
the  little  kiosk  in  the  lake  for  them,  and  I  should 
rather  say  that  we  were  fatef ully  led  there,  so  apt  were 
the  associations  of  the  place  to  my  purpose.  Nothing 
could  have  been  more  natural  than  that  I  should  say, 
as  we  sat  down  there,  "  This  was  where  I  first  saw 
Miss  Gage  with  her  friends ; "  and  it  was  by  a  perfectly 
natural  transition  that  I  should  go  on  to  speak,  in  a 
semi-humorous  strain,  of  the  responsibility  which  Mrs. 
March  and  myself  had  incurred  by  letting  our  sympa 
thy  for  her  run  away  with  us.  I  said  I  supposed  that 
if  we  had  not  been  willing  from  the  first  to  try  to 
realize  for  her  some  of  the  expectations  we  imagined 
she  had  in  coming  to  Saratoga,  she  never  would  have 
fallen  to  our  charge ;  that  people  really  brought  a  great 
many  more  things  upon  themselves  than  they  were 
willing  to  own ;  and  that  fate  was  perhaps  more  the 
fulfillment  of  our  tacit  ambitions  than  our  overt  acts. 
This  bit  of  philosophy,  which  I  confess  I  thought  fine, 
did  not  seem  to  impress  Kendricks.  He  merely  said 
that  it  must  be  great  fun  to  have  the  chance  of  baffling 
the  malice  of  circumstance  in  a  case  like  that,  and  1 


156  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

perceived  that  he  felt  nothing  complex  in  the  situation. 
In  fact,  I  doubt  whether  youth  perceives  anything 
complex  in  life.  To  the  young  life  is  a  very  plain 
case.  To  be  sure,  they  are  much  more  alarmed  than 
their  elders  at  getting  tangled  up  in  its  web  at  times, 
but  that  is  because  they  have  not  had  our  experience 
in  getting  untangled,  and  think  they  are  never  going 
to  get  out  alive.  When  they  do,  they  think  that  it  is 
the  only  tangle  they  are  ever  going  to  be  in,  and  do 
not  know  that  they  are  simply  going  on  from  one  to 
another  as  long  as  there  is  enough  of  them  left  to  be 
caught  in  a  mesh.  To  Kendricks  we  Marches  were 
simply  two  amiable  people,  who  had  fancied  doing  a 
pleasant  thing  for  a  beautiful  girl  that  accident  had 
thrown  it  in  our  power  to  befriend,  and  were  by  no 
means  the  trembling  arbiters  of  her  destiny  we  felt 
ourselves  to  be.  The  difference  between  his  objective 
sense  and  my  subjective  sense  was  the  difference  be 
tween  his  twenty-seven  years  and  my  fifty-two,  and 
while  this  remained  I  saw  that  it  would  be  useless  to 
try  to  get  on  common  ground  with  him,  or  to  give 
him  our  point  of  view.  If  I  were  to  speak  to  him  at 
all,  it  must  be  with  authority,  with  the  right  of  one 
who  stood  in  the  place  of  the  girl's  parents,  and  had 
her  happiness  at  heart.  That  is,  it  was  something  like 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  157 

that;  but  my  words  say  it  too  bluntly.  I  found  my 
self  beginning,  "  I  have  rather  had  a  notion  that  her 
father  might  come  on,  and  take  the  enterprise  off  our 
hands,"  though,  to  tell  the  truth,  1  had  never  imagined 
such  a  thing,  which  came  into  my  head  at  that  moment 
through  an  association  with  the  thought  of  parents. 

"  Have  you  any  idea  what  sort  of  man  he  is  ? "  asked 
Kendricks. 

"  Oh,  some  little  local  magnate,  president  of  the 
village,  and  president  of  the  village  bank;  I  fancy  the 
chief  figure  in  the  place,  but  probably  as  ignorant  of 
our  world  as  a  Cherokee." 

"  Well,  I  don't  know,"  said  the  young  fellow.  "  Do 
you  think  that  follows  because  he  doesn't  live  in  it  ? " 
I  could  see  that  he  did  not  quite  like  what  I  had  said. 
"  I  suppose  ours  is  rather  a  small  world." 

"  The  smallest  of  all  worlds,"  I  answered.  "  And 
in  the  eyes  of  Papa  Gage,  if  they  could  once  be  fo 
cused  upon  it,  our  world  would  shrivel  to  an  atom." 

"Do  you  think,"  he  asked,  with  a  manifest  anxiety, 
"  that  it  would  in  hers  ? " 

"  No ;  she  is  not  the  American  people,  and  her 
father  is,  as  I  fancy  him.  I  make  out  from  the  vague 
hints  that  Brother  Deering  (as  F.ulkerson  would  call 
him)  dropped  when  he  talked  about  him  that  Papa 


158  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

Gage  is  a  shrewd,  practical,  home-keeping  business 
man,  with  an  eye  single  to  the  main  chance,  lavish, 
but  not  generous,  Philistine  to  the  back-bone,  blindly 
devoted  to  his  daughter,  and  contemptuous  of  all  the 
myriad  mysteries  of  civilization  that  he  doesn't  under 
stand.  I  don't  know  why  I  should  be  authorized  to 
imagine  him  personally  long  and  lank,  with  possibly 
a  tobacco  habit  of  some  sort.  His  natural  history, 
upon  no  better  authority,  is  that  of  a  hard-headed 
farmer,  who  found  out  that  farming  could  never  be 
more  than  a  livelihood,  and  came  into  the  village,  and 
began  to  lend  money,  and  get  gain,  till  he  was  in  a 
position  to  help  found  the  De  Witt  Point  National 
Bank,  and  then,  by  weight  of  his  moneyed  solidity, 
imposed  himself  upon  the  free  and  independent  voters 
of  the  village — a  majority  of  them  under  mortgage  to 
him — and  became  its  president.  It  isn't  a  pleasant 
type,  but  it's  ideally  American." 

"  Yes,"  said  Kendricks,  ruefully. 

"  But  his  daughter,"  I  continued,  "  is  probably  alto 
gether  different.  There  is  something  fine  about  her 
— really  fine.  Our  world  wouldn't  shrivel  in  her  eye ; 
it  would  probably  swell  up  and  fill  the  universe,"  I 
added  by  an  impulse  that  came  from  nowhere  irresist 
ibly  upon  me :  "  that  is,  if  she  could  see  you  in  it." 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  159 

"  What  do  you  mean  ? "  he  asked  with  a  start. 

"Oh,  now  I  must  tell  you  what  I  mean,"  I  said 
desperately.  "  It's  you  that  have  complicated  this 
case  so  dreadfully  for  us.  Can't  you  think  why  ?  " 

"  No,  I  can't,"  he  said ;  but  he  had  to  say  that. 

His  fine,  sensitive  face  flamed  at  once  so  fire-red  that 
it  could  only  turn  pale  for  a  change  when  I  plunged 
on :  "  I'm  afraid  we've  trifled  with  her  happiness ;  "  and 
this  formulation  of  the  case  disgusted  me  so  much  that 
I  laughed  wildly,  and  added,  "  unless  we've  trifled 
with  yours,  too." 

"  I  don't  know  why  you  call  it  trifling  with  happi 
ness,"  he  returned  with  dignity,  but  without  offense. 
"  If  you  will  leave  her  out  of  the  question,  I  will  say 
that  you  have  given  me  the  greatest  happiness  of  my 
life  in  introducing  me  to  Miss  Gage." 

"  Now,"  I  demanded,  "may  I  ask  what  you  mean  ? 
You  know  I  wouldn't  if  I  didn't  feel  bound  for  her 
sake,  and  if  you  hadn't  said  just  what  you  have  said. 
You  needn't  answer  me  unless  you  like  !  It's  pleasant 
to  know  that  you've  not  been  bored,  and  Mrs.  March 
and  I  are  infinitely  obliged  to  you  for  helping  us  out." 

Kendricks  made  as  if  he  were  going  to  say  some 
thing,  and  then  he  did  not.  He  hung  his  head  lower 
and  lower  in  the  silence  which  I  had  to  break  for  him : 


160  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

"  I  hope  I  haven't  been  intrusive,  my  dear  fellow. 
This  is  something  I  felt  bound  to  speak  of.  You 
know  we  couldn't  let  it  go  on.  Mrs.  March  and  I  have 
blamed  ourselves  a  good  deal,  and  we  couldn't  let  it 
go  on.  But  I'm  afraid  I  haven't  been  as  delicate  with 
you — " 

"  Oh !  delicate  !  "  He  lifted  his  head  and  flashed 
a  face  of  generous  self-reproach  upon  me.  "  It's  / 
that  haven't  been  delicate  with  you.  I've  been  mon 
strously  indelicate.  But  I  never  meant  to  be,  and 
— and — I  was  coming  to  see  you  just  now  when  we 
met — to  see  you — Miss  Gage — and  ask  her — tell  her 
that  we — I — must  tell  you  and  Mrs.  March —  Mr. 
March  !  At  the  hop  last  night  I  asked  her  to  be  my 
wife,  and  as  soon  as  she  can  hear  from  her  father — 
But  the  first  thing  when  I  woke  this  morning,  I  saw 
that  I  must  tell  Mrs.  March  and  you.  And  you — you 
must  forgive  us — or  me,  rather ;  for  it  was  my  fault — 
for  not  telling  you  last  night — at  once — oh,  thank 
you  !  thank  you  !  " 

I  had  seized  his  hand,  and  was  wringing  it  vehe 
mently  in  expression  of  my  pleasure  in  what  he  had 
told  me.  In  that  first  moment  I  felt  nothing  but  pure 
joy  and  an  immeasurable  relief.  I  drew  my  breath, 
a  very  deep  and  full  one,  in  a  sudden,  absolute  free- 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  161 

dom  from  anxieties  which  had  been  none  the  less  real 
and  constant  because  so  often  burlesqued.  Afterward 
considerations  presented  themselves  to  alloy  my  rapt 
ure,  but  for  that  moment,  as  I  say,  it  was  nothing 
but  rapture.  There  was  no  question  in  it  of  the 
lovers'  fitness  for  each  other,  of  their  acceptability  to 
their  respective  families,  of  their  general  conduct,  or 
of  their  especial  behavior  toward  us.  All  that  I  could 
realize  was  that  it  was  a  great  escape  for  both  of  us, 
and  a  great  triumph  for  me.  I  had  been  afraid  that 
1  should  not  have  the  courage  to  speak  to  Kendricks 
of  the  matter  at  all,  much  less  ask  him  to  go  away ; 
and  here  I  had  actually  spoken  to  him,  with  the  splen 
did  result  that  I  need  only  congratulate  him  on  his 
engagement  to  the  lady  whose  unrequited  affections  I 
had  been  wishing  him  to  spare.  I  don't  remember 
just  the  terms  I  used  in  doing  this,  but  they  seemed 
satisfactory  to  Kendricks  ;  probably  a  repetition  of  the 
letters  of  the  alphabet  would  have  been  equally  accept 
able.  At  last  I  said,  "  Well,  now  I  must  go  and  tell 
the  great  news  to  Mrs.  March,"  and  I  shook  hands 
with  him  again;  we  had  been  shaking  hands  at  half- 
minutely  intervals  ever  since  the  first  time. 


XVIII. 

I  SAW  Mrs.  March  waiting  for  me  on  the  hotel  ve 
randa.  She  wore  her  bonnet,  and  she  warned  me  not 
to  approach,  and  then  ran  down  to  meet  me. 

"  Well,  my  dear,"  she  said,  as  she  pushed  her  hand 
through  my  arm  and  began  to  propel  me  away  from 
the  sight  and  hearing  of  people  on  the  piazza,  "  I  hope 
you  didn't  make  a  fool  of  yourself  with  Kendricks. 
They're  engaged!" 

She  apparently  expected  me  to  be  prostrated  by  this 
stroke.  "  Yes,"  I  said,  very  coolly  ;  "  I  was  just  com 
ing  to  tell  you." 

"  How  did  you  know  it  ?  Who  told  you  ?  Did 
Kendricks  ?  I  don't  believe  it !  "  she  cried  in  an  ex 
citement  not  unmixed  with  resentment. 

"  No  one  told  me,"  I  said.     "  I  simply  divined  it." 

She  didn't  mind  that  for  a  moment.  "  Well,  I'm 
glad  he  had  the  grace  to  do  so,  and  I  hope  he  did  it 
before  you  asked  him  any  leading  questions."  With- 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  163 

out  waiting  to  hear  whether  this  was  so  or  not,  she 
went  on,  with  an  emphasis  on  the  next  word  that  almost 
blotted  it  out  of  the  language,  "  She  came  back  to  me 
almost  the  instant  you  were  gone,  and  told  me  every 
thing.  She  said  she  wanted  to  tell  me  last  night,  but 
she  hadn't  the  courage,  and  this  morning,  when  she 
saw  that  I  was  beginning  to  hint  up  to  Mr.  Kendricks 
a  little,  she  hadn't  the  courage  at  all.  I  sent  her 
straight  off  to  telegraph  for  her  father.  She  is  behav 
ing  splendidly.  And  now,  what  are  we  going  to  do  ? " 

"  What  the  rest  of  the  world  is — nothing.  It  seems 
to  me  that  we  are  out  of  the  story,  my  dear.  At  any 
rate,  I  sha'n't  attempt  to  compete  with  Miss  Gage  in 
splendid  behavior,  and  I  hope  you  won't.  It  would  be 
so  easy  for  us.  I  wonder  what  Papa  Gage  is  going 
to  be  like." 

I  felt  my  thrill  of  apprehension  impart  itself  to  her. 
"  Yes !  "  she  gasped ;  "  what  if  he  shouldn't  like  it  ? " 

"  Well,  then,  that's  his  affair."  But  I  did  not  feel 
so  lightly  about  it  as  I  spoke,  and  from  time  to  time 
during  the  day  I  was  overtaken  with  a  cold  dismay  at 
the  thought  of  the  unknown  quantity  in  the  problem. 

When  we  returned  to  the  hotel  after  a  tour  of  the 
block,  we  saw  Kendricks  in  our  corner  of  the  veranda 
with  Miss  Gage.  They  were  both  laughing  convul- 


164  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

sively,  and  they  ran  down  to  meet  us  in  yet  wilder 
throes  of  merriment. 

"  We've  just  been  comparing  notes,"  he  said,  "  and 
at  the  very  moment  when  I  was  telling  you,  Mr.  March, 
Julia  was  telling  Mrs.  March." 

"  Wonderful  case  of  telepathy,"  I  mocked.  "  Give 
it  to  the  Psychical  Research." 

They  both  seemed  a  little  daunted,  and  Miss  Gage 
said,  "  I  know  Mr.  March  doesn't  like  the  way  we've 
done." 

"  Like  it !  "  cried  Mrs.  March,  contriving  to  shake 
me  a  little  with  the  hand  she  still  had  in  my  arm. 
"  Of  course  he  likes  it.  He  was  just  saying  you  had 
behaved  splendidly.  He  said  he  wouldn't  attempt  to 
compete  with  you.  But  you  mustn't  regard  him  in 
the  least." 

I  admired  the  skill  with  which  Isabel  saved  her  con 
science  in  this  statement  too  much  to  dispute  it ;  and 
I  suppose  that  whatever  she  had  said,  Miss  Gage  would 
have  been  reassured.  I  cannot  particularly  praise  the 
wisdom  of  her  behavior  during  that  day,  or,  for  the 
matter  of  that,  the  behavior  of  Kendricks  either.  The 
ideal  thing  would  have  been  for  him  to  keep  away 
now  till  her  father  came,  but  it  seemed  to  me  that  he 
was  about  under  our  feet  all  the  while,  and  that  she, 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  165 

so  far  from  making  him  remain  at  his  own  hotel, 
encouraged  him  to  pass  the  time  at  ours.  Without 
consulting  me,  Mrs.  March  asked  him  to  stay  to  dinner 
after  he  had  stayed  all  the  forenoon,  and  he  made  this 
a  pretext  for  spending  the  afternoon  in  our  corner  of 
the  veranda.  She  made  me  give  it  up  to  him  and  Miss 
Gage,  so  that  they  could  be  alone  together,  though  I 
must  say  they  did  not  seem  to  mind  us  a  great  deal 
when  we  were  present ;  he  was  always  leaning  on  the 
back  of  her  chair,  or  sitting  next  her  with  his  hand 
dangling  over  it  in  a  manner  that  made  me  sick.  I 
wondered  if  I  was  ever  such  an  ass  as  that,  and  I  quite 
lost  the  respect  for  Kendricks's  good  sense  and  good 
taste  which  had  been  the  ground  of  my  liking  for  him. 
I  felt  myself  withdrawn  from  the  affair  farther  and 
farther  in  sympathy,  since  it  had  now  passed  beyond 
my  control ;  and  I  resented  the  strain  of  the  responsi 
bility  which  I  had  thrown  off,  I  found,  only  for  a  mo 
ment,  and  must  continue  to  suffer  until  the  girl's  father 
appeared  and  finally  relieved  me.  The  worst  was  that 
I  had  to  bear  it  alone.  It  was  impossible  to  detach 
Mrs.  March's  interest  from  Miss  Gage  as  a  girl  who 
had  been  made  love  to  long  enough  to  enable  her  to 
realize  her  as  a  daughter  with  filial  ties  and  duties. 
She  did  try  in  a  perfunctory  way  to  do  it,  but  I  could 


166  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

see  that  she  never  gave  her  mind  to  it.  I  could  not 
even  make  her  share  my  sense  of  my  own  culpability, 
a  thing  she  was  only  too  willing  to  do  in  most  matters. 
She  admitted  that  it  was  absurd  for  me  to  have  let  my 
fancy  play  about  the  girl  when  I  first  saw  her  until 
we  felt  that  I  must  do  something  for  her ;  but  I  could 
not  get  her  to  own  that  we  had  both  acted  preposter 
ously  in  letting  Mrs.  Deering  leave  Miss  Gage  in  our 
charge.  In  the  first  place,  she  denied  that  she  had 
been  left  in  our  charge.  She  had  simply  been  left  in 
the  hotel  where  we  were  staying,  and  we  should  have 
been  perfectly  free  to  do  nothing  for  her.  But  when 
Kendricks  turned  up  so  unexpectedly,  it  was  quite 
natural  we  should  ask  him  to  be  polite  to  her.  Mrs. 
March  saw  nothing  strange  in  all  that.  What  was  I 
worrying  about  ?  What  she  had  been  afraid  of  was 
that  he  had  not  been  in  love  with  the  girl  when  she 
was  so  clearly  in  love  with  him.  But  now ! 
"  And  suppose  her  father  doesn't  like  it  ? " 
"  Not  like  Mr.  Kendricks  !  "  She  stared  at  me,  and 
I  could  see  how  infatuated  she  was. 

I  was  myself  always  charmed  with  the  young  fellow. 
He  was  not  only  good  and  generous  and  handsome, 
and  clever — I  never  thought  him  a  first-class  talent — 
but  he  was  beautifully  well  bred,  and  he  was  very  well 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  167 

horn,  as  those  things  go  with  us.  That  is,  he  came  of 
people  who  had  not  done  much  of  anything  for  a  gen 
eration,  and  had  acquired  merit  with  themselves  for 
it.  They  were  not  very  rich,  but  they  had  a  right  to 
think  that  he  might  have  done  nothing,  or  done  some 
thing  better  than  literature ;  and  I  wish  I  could  set 
forth  exactly  the  terms,  tacit  and  explicit,  in  which 
his  mother  and  sisters  condoned  his  dereliction  to  me 
at  a  reception  where  he  presented  me  to  them.  In 
virtue  of  his  wish  to  do  something,  he  had  become  a 
human  being,  and  they  could  not  quite  follow  him; 
but  they  were  very  polite  in  tolerating  me,  and  trying 
to  make  me  feel  that  I  was  not  at  all  odd,  though  he 
was  so  queer  in  being  proud  of  writing  for  my  paper, 
as  they  called  it.  He  was  so  unlike  them  all  that  I 
liked  him  more  than  ever  after  meeting  them.  Still, 
I  could  imagine  a  fond  father,  as  I  imagined  Miss 
Gage's  father  to  be,  objecting  to  him,  on  some  grounds 
at  least,  till  he  knew  him,  and  Mrs.  March  apparently 
could  not  imagine  even  this. 

I  do  not  know  why  I  should  have  prefigured  Miss 
Gage's  father  as  tall  and  lank.  She  was  not  herself 
so  very  tall,  though  she  was  rather  tall  than  short,  and 
though  she  was  rather  of  the  Diana  or  girlish  type  of 
goddess,  she  was  by  no  means  lank.  Yet  it  was  in 


168  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

this  shape  that  I  had  always  thought  of  him,  perhaps 
through  an  obscure  association  with  his  fellow-villager, 
Deering.  I  had  fancied  him  saturnine  of  spirit,  slov 
enly  of  dress,  and  lounging  of  habit,  upon  no  authority 
that  I  could  allege,  and  I  was  wholly  unprepared  for 
the  neat,  small  figure  of  a  man,  very  precise  of  manner 
and  scrupulous  of  aspect,  who  said,  "  How  do  you  do, 
sir  ?  I  hope  I  see  you  well,  sir,"  when  j^g  daughter 
presented  us  to  each  other,  the  morning  after  the 
eventful  day  described,  and  he  shook  my  hand  with 
his  very  small,  dry  hand. 

I  could  not  make  out  from  their  manner  with  each 
other  whether  they  had  been  speaking  of  the  great 
matter  in  hand  or  not.  I  am  rather  at  a  loss  about 
people  of  that  Philistine  make  as  to  what  their  pro 
cedure  will  be  in  circumstances  where  I  know  just 
what  people  of  my  own  sort  of  sophistication  would 
do.  These  would  come  straight  at  the  trouble,  but  I 
fancy  that  with  the  other  sort  the  convention  is  a  pre 
liminary  reserve.  I  found  Mr.  Gage  disposed  to  pro 
long,  with  me  at  least,  a  discussion  of  the  weather,  and 
the  aspects  of  Saratoga,  the  events  of  his  journey  from 
De  Witt  Point,  and  the  hardship  of  having  to  ride  all 
the  way  to  Mooer's  Junction  in  a  stage-coach.  I  felt 
more  and  more,  while  we  bandied  these  futilities,  as 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  169 

if  Mr.  Gage  had  an  overdue  note  of  mine,  and  was 
waiting  for  me,  since  I  could  not  pay  it,  to  make  some 
proposition  toward  its  renewal ;  and  he  did  really  tire 
me  out  at  last,  so  that  I  said,  "  Well,  Mr.  Gage,  I 
suppose  Miss  Gage  has  told  you  something  of  the  tre 
mendous  situation  that  has  developed  itself  here  ? " 

I  thought  I  had  better  give  the  affair  such  smiling 
character  as  a  jocose  treatment  might  impart,  and  the 
dry  little  man  twinkled  up  responsively  so  far  as  man 
ner  was  concerned.  "  Well,  yes,  yes.  There  has  been 
some  talk  of  it  between  us,"  and  again  he  left  the 
word  to  me. 

"  Mrs.  March  urged  your  daughter  to  send  for  you 
at  once  because  that  was  the  right  and  fit  thing  to  do, 
and  because  we  felt  that  the  affair  had  now  quite  tran 
scended  our  powers,  such  as  they  were,  and  nobody 
could  really  cope  with  it  but  yourself.  I  hope  you 
were  not  unduly  alarmed  by  the  summons  ?" 

"  Not  at  all.  She  said  in  the  despatch  that  she  was 
not  sick.  I  had  been  anticipating  a  short  visit  to  Sar 
atoga  for  some  days,  and  my  business  was  in  a  shape 
so  that  I  could  leave." 

"  Oh ! "  I  said  vaguely,  "  I  am  very  glad.  Mrs. 
March  felt,  as  I  did,  that  circumstances  had  given  us  a 
certain  obligation  in  regard  to  Miss  Gage,  and  we  were 


170  AN    OrEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

anxious  to  discharge  it  faithfully  and  to  the  utmost. 
We  should  have  written  to  you,  summoned  you,  before, 
if  we  could  have  supposed — or  been  sure ;  but  you 
know  these  things  go  on  so  obscurely,  and  we  acted  at 
the  very  first  possible  moment.  I  wish  you  to  under 
stand  that.  We  talked  it  over  a  great  deal,  and  I  hope 
you  will  believe  that  we  studied  throughout — that  we 
were  most  solicitous  from  beginning  to  end  for  Miss 
Gage's  happiness,  and  that  if  we  could  have  foreseen  or 
imagined — if  we  could  have  taken  any  steps — I  trust 
you  will  believe — "  I  was  furious  at  myself  for  being 
so  confoundedly  apologetic,  for  I  was  thinking  all  the 

time  of  the  bother  and  affliction  we  had  had  with  the 

•i 
girl ;  and  there  sat  that  little  wooden  image  accepting 

my  self-inculpations,  and  apparently  demanding  more 
of  me;  but  I  could  not  help  going  on  in  the  same 
strain :  "  We  felt  especially  bound  in  the  matter,  from 
the  fact  that  Mr.  Kendricks  was  a  personal  friend  of 
ours,  whom  we  are  very  fond  of,  and  we  both  are  very 
anxious  that  you  should  not  suppose  that  we  promoted, 
or  that  we  were  not  .most  vigilant — that  we  were  for 
a  moment  forgetful  of  your  rights  in  such  an  affair — " 

I  stopped,  and  Mr.  Gage  passed  his  hand  across  his 
little  meager,  smiling  mouth. 

"  Then  he  is  not  a  connection  of  yours,  Mr.  March  ?  " 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  171 

"  Bless  me,  no  !  "  I  said  in  great  relief ;  "  we  are  not 
so. swell  as  that."  And  I  tried  to  give  him  some  no 
tion  of  Kendricks's  local  quality,  repeating  a  list  of 
agglutinated  New  York  surnames  to  which  his  was 
more  or  less  affiliated.  They  always  amuse  me,  those 
names,  which  more  than  any  in  the  world  give  the 
notion  of  social  straining ;  but  I  doubt  if  they  affected 
the  imagination  of  Mr.  Gage,  either  in  this  way  or  in 
the  way  I  meanly  meant  them  to  affect  him. 

"  And  what  did  you  say  his  business  was  ? "  he 
asked,  with  that  implication  of  a  previous  statement 
on  your  part  which  some  people  think  it  so  clever  to 
make  when  they  question  you. 

I  always  hate  it,  and  I  avenged  myself  by  answering 
simply,  "  Bless  my  soul,  he  has  no  business ! "  and 
letting  him  take  up  the  word  now  or  not,  as  he  liked. 

"  Then  he  is  a  man  of  independent  means  ? " 

I  could  not  resist  answering,  "  Independent  means? 
Kendricks  has  no  means  whatever."  But  having  dealt 
this  blow,  I  could  add,  "  I  believe  his  mother  has  some 
money.  They  are  people  who  live  comfortably." 

"  Then  he  has  no  profession  ? "  asked  Mr.  Gage, 
with  a  little  more  stringency  in  his  smile. 

"  I  don't  know  whether  you  will  call  it  a  profession. 
He  is  a  writer." 


172  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

"  All ! "  Mr.  Gage  softly  breathed.  "  Does  he  write 
for  your — paper  ?  " 

I  noted  that  as  to  the  literary  technicalities  he 
seemed  not  to  be  much  more  ignorant  than  Kendricks's 
own  family,  and  I  said,  tolerantly,  "  Yes ;  he  writes  for 
our  magazine." 

"Magazine — yes;  I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  inter 
rupted. 

"  And  for  any  others  where  he  can  place  his  mate 
rial." 

This  apparently  did  not  convey  any  very  luminous 
idea  to  Mr.  Gage's  mind,  and  he  asked  after  a  mo 
ment,  "  What  kind  of  things  does  he  write  ? " 

"  Oh,  stories,  sketches,  poems,  reviews,  essays — 
almost  anything  in  fact." 

The  light  left  his  face,  and  I  perceived  that  I  had 
carried  my  revenge  too  far,  at  least  for  Kendricks's 
advantage,  and  I  determined  to  take  a  new  departure 
at  the  first  chance.  The  chance  did  not  come  imme 
diately. 

"  And  can  a  man  support  a  wife  by  that  kind  of 
writing?"  asked  Mr.  Gage. 

I  laughed  uneasily.  "  Some  people  do.  It  depends 
upon  how  much  of  it  he  can  sell.  It  depends  upon 
how  handsomely  a  wife  wishes  to  be  supported.  The 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  173 

result  isn't  usually  beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice,"  I 
said,  with  a  desperate  levity. 

"  Excuse  me,"  returned  the  little  man.  "  Do  you 
live  in  that  way  ?  By  your  writings  ? " 

"  No,"  I  said  with  some  state,  which  I  tried  to  sub 
due  ;  "  I  am  the  editor  of  *  Every  Other  Week,'  and 
part  owner.  Mr.  Kendricks  is  merely  a  contributor." 

"  Ah,"  he  breathed  again.  "  And  if  he  were  suc 
cessful  in  selling  his  writings,  how  much  would  he 
probably  make  in  a  year  ? " 

"  In  a  year  ? "  I  repeated  to  gain  time.  "  Mr.  Ken 
dricks  is  comparatively  a  beginner.  Say  fifteen  hun 
dred — two  thousand — twenty-five  hundred." 

"  And  that  would  not  go  very  far  in  New  York." 

"  No  ;  that  would  not  go  far  in  New  York."  I  was 
beginning  to  find  a  certain  pleasure  in  dealing  so 
frankly  with  this  hard  little  man.  I  liked  to  see  him 
_suffer,  and  I  could  see  that  he  did  suffer;  he  suffered 
as  a  father  must  who  learns  that  from  a  pecuniary 
point  of  view  his  daughter  is  imprudently  in  love. 
Why  should  we  always  regard  such  a  sufferer  as  a 
comic  figure  ?  He  is,  if  we  think  of  it  rightly,  a  most 
serious,  even  tragical  figure,  and  at  all  events  a  most 
respectable  figure.  He  loves  her,  and  his  heart  is  torn 
between  the  wish  to  indulge  her  and  the  wish  to  do 


174  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

what  will  be  finally  best  for  her.  Why  should  our 
sympathies,  in  such  a  case,  be  all  for  the  foolish  young 
lovers  ?  They  ought  in  great  measure  to  be  for  the 
father,  too.  Something  like  a  sense  of  this  smote  me, 
and  I  was  ashamed  in  my  pleasure. 

"  Then  I  should  say,  Mr.  March,  that  this  seems  a 
most  undesirable  engagement  for  my  daughter.  What 
should  you  say  ?  I  ask  you  to  make  the  case  your 
own." 

"  Excuse  me,"  I  answered ;  "  I  would  much  rather 
not  make  the  case  my  own,  Mr.  Gage,  and  I  must  de 
cline  to  have  you  consult  me.  I  think  that  in  this 
matter  I  have  done  all  that  I  was  called  upon  to  do.  I 
have  told  you  what  I  know  of  Mr.  Kendricks's  circum 
stances  and  connections.  As  to  his  character,  I  can 
truly  say  that  he  is  one  of  the  best  men  I  ever  knew. 
I  believe  in  his  absolute  purity  of  heart,  and  he  is  the 
most  unselfish,  the  most  generous — " 

Mr.  Gage  waved  the  facts  aside  with  his  hand.  "  I 
don't  undervalue  those  things.  If  I  could  be  master, 
no  one  should  have  my  girl  without  them.  But  they 
do  not  constitute  a  livelihood.  From  what  you  tell 
me  of  Mr.  Kendricks's  prospects,  I  am  not  prepared 
to  say  that  I  think  the  outlook  is  brilliant.  If  he  has 
counted  upon  my  supplying  a  deficiency — " 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  175 

"  Oh,  excuse  me,  Mr.  Gage  !     Your  insinuation — " 

"  Excuse  me  !  "  he  retorted.  "  I  am  making  no  in 
sinuation.  I  merely  wish  to  say  that,  while  my  means 
are  such  as  to  enable  me  to  live  in  comfort  at  De 
Witt  Point,  I  am  well  aware  that  much  more  would  be 
needed  in  New  York  to  enable  my  daughter  to  live  in 
the  same  comfort.  I'm  not  willing  she  should  live  in 
less.  I  think  it  is  my  duty  to  say  that  I  am  not  at  all 
a  rich  man,  and  if  there  has  been  any  supposition  that 
I  am  so,  it  is  a  mistake  that  cannot  be  corrected  too 
soon." 

This  time  I  could  not  resent  his  insinuation,  for 
since  he  had  begun  to  speak  I  had  become  guiltily 
aware  of  having  felt  a  sort  of  ease  in  regard  to  Ken- 
dricks's  modesty  of  competence  from  a  belief,  given 
me,  I  suspect,  by  the  talk  of  Deering,  that  Mr.  Gage 
had  plenty  of  money,  and  could  come  to  the  rescue  in 
any  amount  needed.  I  could  only  say,  "  Mr.  Gage, 
all  this  is  so  far  beyond  my  control  that  I  ought  not 
to  allow  you  to  say  it  to  me.  It  is  something  that 
you  must  say  to  Mr.  Kendricks." 

As  I  spoke  I  saw  the  young  fellow  come  round  the 
corner  of  the  street,  and  mount  the  hotel  steps.  He 
did  not  see  me,  for  he  did  not  look  toward  the  little 
corner  of  lawn  where  Mr.  Gage  and  I  had  put  our 


176  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  I 

chairs  for  the  sake  of  the  morning  shade,  and  for  the 
seclusion  that  the  spot  afforded  us.  It  was  at  the 
angle  of  the  house  farthest  from  our  peculiar  corner 
of  the  piazza,  whither  I  had  the  belief  that  the  girl 
had  withdrawn  when  she  left  me  to  her  father.  I  was 
sure  that  Kendricks  would  seek  her  there,  far  enough 
beyond  eyeshot  or  earshot  of  us,  and  I  had  no  doubt 
that  she  was  expecting  him. 

"  You  are  Mr.  Kendricks's  friend — " 

"  I  have  tried  much  more  to  be  Miss  Gage's  friend ; 
and  Mrs.  March — "  It  came  into  my  mind  that  she 
was  most  selfishly  and  shamelessly  keeping  out  of  the 
way,  and  I  could  not  go  on  and  celebrate  her  magnan 
imous  impartiality,  her  eager  and  sleepless  vigilance. 

"  I  have  no  doubt  of  that,"  said  the  little  man,  "  and 
I  am  very  much  obliged  to  you  for  all  the  trouble  you 
have  taken  on  my  daughter's  account.  But  you  are 
his  friend,  and  I  can  speak  to  you  much  more  fully 
and  frankly  than  I  could  to  him." 

I  did  not  know  just  what  to  say  to  this,  and  he 
went  on :  "  In  point  of  fact,  I  don't  think  that  I  shall 
speak  to  him  at  all." 

"  That  is  quite  your  affair,  my  dear  sir,"  I  said 
dryly.  "  It  isn't  to  be  supposed  that  you  would  seek 
an  interview  with  him." 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  ITT 

"  And  if  he  seeks  an  interview  with  me,  I  shall  de 
cline  it."  He  looked  at  me  defiantly  and  yet  inter 
rogatively.  I  could  see  that  he  was  very  angry,  and 

Vet  uncertain. 

j 

"  I  must  say,  then,  Mr.  Gage,  that  I  don't  think  you 
\vouid  be  right." 

"  How,  not  right  ?  " 

"  I  should  say  that  in  equity  he  had  a  full  and  per 
fect  right  to  meet  you,  and  to  talk  this  matter  over 
with  you.  He  has  done  you  no  wrong  whatever  in 
admiring  your  daughter,  and  wishing  to  marry  her. 
It's  for  you  and  her  to  decide  whether  you  will  let 
him.  But  as  far  as  his  wish  goes,  and  his  expression 
of  it  to  her,  he  is  quite  within  his  rights.  You  must 
see  that  yourself." 

"I  consider,"  he  answered,  "that  he  has  done  me 
a  wrong  in  that  very  thing.  A  man  without  means, 
or  any  stated  occupation,  he  had  no  business  to  speak 
to  my  daughter  without  speaking  to  me.  He  took 
advantage  of  the  circumstances.  What  does  he  think  ? 

o 

Does  he  suppose  I  am  made  of  money  ?  Does  he  sup 
pose  I  want  to  support  a  son-in-law?  I  can  tell  you 
that  if  I  were  possessed  of  unlimited  means,  I  should 
not  do  it."  I  began  to  suspect  that  Deering  was  nearer 
right,  after  all,  in  his  representations  of  the  man's  finan- 


178  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

cial  ability ;  I  fancied  something  of  the  anxiety,  the 
tremor  of  avarice,  in  his  resentment  of  poor  Ken- 
dricks's  possible,  or  rather  impossible,  designs  upon 
his  pocket.  "If  he  had  any  profession,  or  any  kind 
of  business,  I  should  feel  differently,  and  I  should  be 
willing  to  assist  him  to  a  reasonable  degree ;  or  if  he 
had  a  business  training,  I  might  take  him  in  with  me ; 
but  as  it  is,  I  should  have  a  helpless  burden  on  my 
hands,  and  I  can  tell  you  I  am  not  going  in  for  that 
sort  of  thing.  I  shall  make  short  work  of  it.  I  shall 
decline  to  meet  Mr.  Hendricks,  or  Kendricks,  and  I 
shall  ask  you  to  say  as  much  to  him  from  me." 

"  And  I  shall  decline  to  be  the  bearer  of  any  such 
message  from  you,  Mr.  Gage,"  I  answered,  and  I  saw, 
not  without  pleasure,  the  bewilderment  that  began  to 
mix  with  his  arrogance. 

"  Very  well,  then,  sir,"  he  answered,  after  a  mo 
ment;  "I  shall  simply  take  my  daughter  away  with 
me,  and  that  will  end  it." 

The  prim  little,  grim  little  man  looked  at  me  with 
his  hard  eyes,  and  set  his  lips  so  close  that  the  beard 
on  the  lower  one  stuck  out  at  me  with  a  sort  of  ad 
ditional  menace.  I  felt  that  he  was  too  capable  of 
doing  what  he  said,  and  I  lost  myself  in  a  sense  of  his 
sordidness,  a  sense  which  was  almost  without  a  trace 
of  compassion. 


A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  179 

It  seemed  as  if  I  were  a  long  time  under  the  spell 
of  this,  and  the  sight  of  his  repugnant  face ;  but  it 
could  really  have  been  merely  a  moment,  when  I  heard 
a  stir  of  drapery  on  the  grass  near  us,  and  the  soft, 
rich  voice  of  Miss  Gage  saying,  "  Papa !  " 

We  both  started  to  our  feet.  I  do  not  know  whether 
she  had  heard  what  he  said  or  not.  We  had  spoken 
low,  and  in  the  utmost  vehemence  of  his  speech  he 
did  not  lift  his  voice.  In  any  case,  she  did  not  heed 
what  he  said. 

"  Papa,"  she  repeated,  "  I  want  you  to  come  up  and 
see  Mrs.  March  on  the  piazza.  And — Mr.  Kendricks 
is  there." 

I  had  a  wild  desire  to  laugh  at  what  followed,  and 
yet  it  was  not  without  its  pathos.  "  I — I — hm  !  hm  ! 
I — cannot  see  Mr.  Kendricks  just  at  present.  I — the 
fact  is,  I  do  not  want  to  see  him.  It  is  better — not. 
I  think  you  had  better  get  reMy  to  go  home  with  me 
at  once,  daughter.  I — hm  ! — cannot  approve  of  any 
engagement  to  Mr.  Kendricks,  and  I — prefer  not  to 
meet  him."  He  stopped. 

Miss  Gage  said  nothing,  and  I  cannot  say  that  she 
looked  anything.  She  simply  clouded  up,  if  I  may 
so  express  the  effect  that  came  and  remained  upon  her 
countenance,  which  was  now  the  countenance  she  had 


180  AN    OPEN-EYED    CONSPIRACY  : 

shown  me  the  first  evening  I  saw  her,  when  I  saw  the 
Deerings  cowering  in  its  shadow.  I  had  no  need  to 
look  at  the  adamantine  little  man  before  her  to  know 
that  he  was  softening  into  wax,  and,  in  fact,  I  felt  a 
sort  of  indecency  in  beholding  his  inteneration,  for  I 
knew  that  it  came  from  his  heart,  and  had  its  conse 
cration  through  his  love  for  her. 

That  is  why  I  turned  away,  and  do  not  know  to 
this  moment  just  how  the  change  she  desired  in  him 
was  brought  about.  I  will  not  say  that  I  did  not  look 
back  from  a  discreet  distance,  and  continue  looking 
until  I  saw  them  start  away  together  and  move  in  the 
direction  of  that  corner  of  the  piazza  where  Kendricks 
was  waiting  with  Mrs.  March. 

It  appeared,  from  her  account,  that  Mr.  Gage,  with 
no  uncommon  show  of  ill-will,  but  with  merely  a  nat 
ural  dryness,  suffered  Kendricks  to  be  presented  to 
him,  and  entered  upon  some  preliminary  banalities 
with  l^im,  such  as  he  had  used  in  opening  a  conversa 
tion  with  me.  Before  these  came  to  a  close  Mrs. 
March  had  thought  it  well  to  leave  the  three  together. 

Afterward,  when  we  knew  the  only  result  that  the 
affair  could  have,  she  said,  "  The  girl  has  a  powerful 
will.  I  wonder  what  the  mother  was  like." 

"  Yes ;  evidently  she  didn't  get  that  will  from  her 


f 

A    SARATOGA    IDYL.  181 

father.  I  have  still  a  sense  of  exhaustion  from  it  in 
oar  own  case.  What  do  you  think  it  portends  for 
poor  Kendricks  ? " 

"  Poor  Kendricks  ? "  she  repeated  thoughtfully. 
"  Yes ;  in  that  sense  I  suppose  you  might  call  him 
poor.  It  isn't  an  equal  thing  as  far  as  nature,  as  char 
acter,  goes.  But  isn't  it  always  dreadful  to  see  two 
people  who  have  made  up  their  minds  to  get  married  ?  " 

"  It's  very  common,"  I  suggested. 

"  That  doesn't  change  the  fact,  or  lessen  the  risk. 
She  is  very  beautiful,  and  now  he  is  in  love  with  her 
beautiful  girlhood.  But  after  a  while  the  girlhood 
will  go." 

"  And  the  girl  will  remain,"  I  said. 


THE  END. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

RENEWALS  ONLY— TEL.  NO.  642-3405 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

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